Safi al-Din al-Hilli

Abu ’l-Maḥāsin Ṣafī al-Dīn Abd al-Aziz ibn Saraya al-Ḥillī al-Ṭāyyʾī al-Sinbisī (Arabic: أبو المحاسن صافي الدين عبد العزيز بن سرايا الحلي الصاع السنبيسي; 26 August 1278 – 1349 AD/5 Rabi' al-Thani 677 – 749 AH), more commonly known as Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī or Ṣafiddīn al-Ḥilli (Arabic: صفي الدين الحلي),[1] was a 14th-century Arab warrior poet.

Safī al-Dīn al-Hillī
Manuscript of the Diwan of Safiddin Hilli
Manuscript of the Diwan of Safiddin Hilli
Native name
صفي الدين الحلي
Born1278 AD/677 AH
Hillah
Died1349 AD/749 AH (aged 71)
Baghdad
OccupationPoet, mujahid, literary critic, politician
LanguageArabic
NationalityAbbasid Caliphate
PeriodIslamic Golden Age
GenreQasida, Ghazal, Adab, Maqtu, Dhikr
Notable works Diwan, Durar al-Nuhur

Life

Despite his being one of the most famous poets of his century, the historical record of Al-Hilli's life is often vague.[1] Al-Hilli's birth is recorded as 26 August 1278 in most sources, though one of his contemporaries gives his birth as October or November 1279.[1] He was born in Hillah, modern-day Iraq, to a Shia Muslim family of the renowned Tayyi tribe.[2][3] Early in life, after one of his uncles was murdered, Al-Hilli fought in a battle to avenge his death.[3] He wrote poems about his family's exploits in this battle, which garnered a lot of attention.[3]

After he achieved his initial success as a poet, a war broke out, having to leave his wives and his family behind, he was forced to leave Iraq in 1302.[3] Around this time, he became the court poet in Mardin, modern-day Turkey, under the Artuqids.[2] In his youth he made money mostly through commerce, later in life he made a living by writing eulogies for wealthy princes.[3]

Al-Hilli died in 1338[1] or 1349.[3]

Poetry

Al-Hilli, alongside Ibn Nubata, was one of the two most celebrated Arab poets of the 14th century.[4][1] Al-Hilli's poetic style was considered innovative and experimental, integrating established poetic traditions with new vocabulary.[5]

Al-Hilli is perhaps best remembered for the poetic lines which inspired the Pan-Arab colors: "White are our deeds, black are our battles, / Green are our tents, red are our swords."[3] These lines are from Al-Hilli's fakhr ("boasting") poem written to celebrate his family's victories in the battle to avenge his uncle.[3]

His major poetic works are a collection of eulogies titled Durar al-Nuhur ("Jewels for Necks") and his Diwan ("Poems").[3] In his Diwan, he organizes his poems into twelve categories spanning most major Arabic thematic genres:

  1. Boasting and bravery (Fakhr)
  2. Eulogy, praise and thanksgiving (Madih)
  3. Hunting poems and others (Tardiyyah)
  4. Friendship (Khawal)
  5. Ritha and condolence
  6. Ghazal and other erotic themes
  7. Wine and flower poetry (Khamriyyah)
  8. Lamentations and chiding
  9. Apologies, gifts and pleads for leniency
  10. Philosophy and riddles
  11. Adab, asceticism and religion
  12. Satire and funny anecdotes.[3]

Al-Hillī is also noted for composing one of four collections of epigrammatic maqṭūʿ-poems that were seminal for the development of the genre in the fourteenth century: his twenty-chapter Dīwān al-Mathālith wa-l-mathānī fī l-maʿālī wa-l-maʿānī ('The Collection of Two-liners and Three-liners on Virtues and Literary Motifs'). This was composed between 1331 and 1341 at the princely court in Hama, and dedicated to al-Malik al-Afḍal (r. 1332–41).[6]: 47–50  In addition to writing poetry, he wrote several works of literary criticism on poetic forms.[2]

References
  1. Heinrichs, W. P. (2012-04-24). "Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Sarāyā al-Ḥillī". Encyclopaedia of Islam (Second ed.). Brill Reference Online. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_com_0966. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  2. Esposito, John L. (2003). "Hilli, Safi al-Din Abd al-Aziz ibn Saraya al". Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-989120-7. OCLC 52362778.
  3. Jayyusi, Salma (2006). "Arabic Poetry in the Post-Classical Age". Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period (1st ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 51–54. ISBN 978-1-139-05399-0. OCLC 664103369.
  4. Conermann, Stephan (2013). Ubi Sumus? Quo Vademus?: Mamluk Studies, State of the Art. Goettingen. pp. 34–35. ISBN 978-3-8471-0100-0. OCLC 829755503.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. Jayyusi, Salma (2006). "Arabic Poetry in the Post-Classical Age". Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period (1st ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-1-139-05399-0. OCLC 664103369. Al-Hilli is famous for his active interest in the new experiments in form that were affecting both formal and vernacular poetry... He was aware both of the inherited poetic idiom he had mastered and of the vocabulary in use in his day, and showed great dexterity in incorporating words from the new vocabulary into the entrenched syntax of the inherited verse, so harmonizing the new with the old without hindrance to the assimilation of meaning or to the flow of the poem's rhythms.
  6. Adam Talib, How Do You Say “Epigram” in Arabic? Literary History at the Limits of Comparison, Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures, 40 (Leiden: Brill, 2018); ISBN 978-90-04-34996-4.
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