مشروع د ف غ

"Edition of Ibn Nubātah al-Miṣrī's (1287-1366) Complete Works"

2020-2032

“This is the famous, excellent and creative poet, who in all kinds of poetry surpassed his contemporaries, all those who came after him and even most of those who lived before him.”

This is how the Yemeni reformer aš-Šawkānī (1760-1834) characterised Ibn Nubātah al-Miṣrī.

The aim of this long-term project is to edit the complete works by Ibn Nubātah al-Miṣrī (d. 1366), who was active in Syria and Egypt and was the most influential Arabic poet after al-Mutanabbī (d. 965). Despite his immense importance, many of his works, including his dīwān (collected poetry), have so far only been accessible in manuscripts or poor editions.

The reason for this is the still very influential colonialist concept of an “age of decline” of the entire Arabic culture starting from the 11th century. Even the elites of the Arab world used this decline (inḥiṭāṭ) paradigm to explain the loss of power and the humiliations of the Arabic-Islamic civilization under European colonialism. The concept of inḥiṭāṭ has informed and still informs all attempts to remedy this situation by following western ideologies like nationalism, socialism or Islamism. The fixation on a “Golden Age of Islam” and the dismissal of all later periods has had and still has devastating effects on the way Arabic speaking societies see themselves and thus also on current politics.

Therefore, it is important to make Ibn Nubātah’s work accessible, given that it is a basic corpus for future research on the much-neglected area of Arabic literature of the Mamluk (1250-1517) and Ottoman periods. Ibn Nubātah’s oeuvre consists of his dīwān, of which four recensions exist, and 33 other works encompassing his poetry, his equally acclaimed prose writings and anthologies and excerpts written by other authors. Our aim is to publish all his works in critical editions with two apparatuses, one listing text variants and another offering details on persons, places, technical terms, intertextual references, historical background and stylistic devices.

In addition to printed volumes, we will produce a fully searchable digital edition of Ibn Nubātah’s complete works that will not only allow the identification of quotes and other references, but also help to expose and understand how this outstanding writer, who constantly revised his compositions, worked. The digital edition will thus contribute significantly to understanding the history of his very influential oeuvre.

Research findings on the Arabic literature of the Mamluk period and on digital editing methods and techniques are presented, discussed and made widely known in international conferences and guest lectures as well as in academic teaching.