Abu Abdallah al-Husayn ibn Ahmad al-Mughallis explained

Abū Abdallāh al-Ḥusayn ibn ʾAḥmad al-Mughallis al-Marāghī (Arabic: أبو عبد الله الحسين بن أحمد المغلس المراغي|; the epithet also appears as al-Mughallisī) was a tenth-century CE poet. He flourished around 381 AH/991 CE, being associated with the court of Bahāʾ al-Dawla.^[1] He is noted as one of the only known composers of Arabic riddles in the third century AH.^[2]

Epithets

A few sources refer to Ibn al-Mughallis instead as al-Muflis ('the bankrupt'), but this is due to scribal confusion of the Arabic letters غ and ف: in medial position these look similar, and short vowels are not written, so that Arabic: المغلس 'al-Mughallis' was miscopied as Arabic: المفلس 'al-muflis'.^[3] Mughallis has been glossed to mean 'the one who tarries'.^[4]

The epithet al-Marāghī has been thought to suggest that al-Mughallis originated in the Adharbayjani town of Maragheh.^[5]

Works

According to Bilal Orfali, the eleventh-century literary scholar ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʻālibī quotes from al-Mughallis's poetry in many of his works. His poetry anthology Yatīma includes al-Mughallis's work in 'the third region of the Yatīma al-Dahr: on the clever curiosities of the inhabitants of Jibāl, Fārs, Jurjān, and Ṭabaristān' (Arabic: القسم الثالث من يتيمة الدهر في محاسن أهل العصر وهو يشتملعلى ملح أشعار أهل الجبال وفارس وجرجان وطبرستان)', specifically the eighth chapter, 'mention of all the poets of al-Jabal and those who went there from Iraq and other places, and the clever curiosities of their accounts and poems' (Arabic: في ذكر سائر شعراء الجبل والطارئين عليه من العراق وغيرها وملح أخبارهم وأشعارهم).^[6] The collection quotes two riddles, on a touchstone (Arabic: محك الذهب) and banner (Arabic: اللواء),^[7] and a little more poetry besides.

Thaʻālibī included more of al-Mughallis's poems in the sequel to the Yatīma, his Tatimma al-Yatīma, where al-Mughallis appears in the second region, entitled: 'completion of the second region on the beauties of the Iraqīs — rather, their best achievements and clever related curiosities' (Arabic: تتمة القسم الثاني في محاسن أشعار أهل العراق بل أحاسنها وما يتصل بها من ملح أخبارهم).^[8] According to both the Beirut edition of 1983 and Radwan's critical edition of 1972, the Tatimma records eleven riddles by al-Mughallis along with a brief excerpt from a ghazal.^[9]

Solution!Lines!Metre

Yatīma	مِحَكُّ الذَهَبِ	miḥakku al-dhahabi	touchstone for gold	2	Ṭawīl
	اللِّواءُ	al-liwāʾu	pennant	2	Ṭawīl
Tatimma	نَخْلَةُ عَلى شاطِئ نَهْرِ مِن دِجْلةِ	nakhlatu ʿalā shāṭiʾ nahri min Dijlati	palm tree on the shore of the River Tigris	2	Mutaqārib
	السُفْرةُ	sufratu	drawstring bag for food	6	Wāfir
	البَيْضَةُ	al-bayḍatu	egg	2	Ṭawīl
	بَاقَةُ الْبَقْلِ	bāqatu al-baqli	bundle of herbs/vegetables	2	Munsariḥ
	الزُنْبورُ	al-zunbūr	hornet	6	Rajaz
	الْمِقْرَاضُ	al-miqrāḍu	scissors	2	Hazaj
	الْسَّيْفُ	al-sayfu	sword	2	Mutaqārib
	الْمِيزَابُ	al-mīzābu	gutter	5	Rajaz
	ُالْكِتَاب	al-kitābu	book	2	Ṭawīl
	صورَتِهِ الَّتِي يَرَاهَا فِي الْمِرْآةِ	ṣūratu-hu allatī yarā-hā fī al-mirāti	the image one sees in the mirror	2	Ṭawīl
	الْحَمَّامُ	al-ḥammāmu	the baths	4	Ṭawīl
al-Wāfī bi-al-wafayāt	القَبَّانُ	al-qabbānu	steelyard	3	Mutaqārib

Primary sources

• , vol. 13 p. 202 [no. 3555]
• ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʿālibī, Yatīma:
  • ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʿālibī, Yatīmat al-dahr fī shuʿarāʾ ahl al-ʿaṣr (يتيمة الدهر في شعراء أهلالعصر), 4 vols (Damascus: [al-Maṭbaʿah al-Ḥifnīyah] دمشق : المطبعة الحفنية, 1302 AH [1885 CE]), II 228.
  • Yatīmat al-dahr fī shuʿarāʾ ahl al-ʿaṣr Arabic: يتيمة الدهر في محاسن أهل العصر, ed. by Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Arabic: محمد محي الدين عبدالحميد, 4 vols (Cairo 1956), vol. 3 pp. 415–16.
  • Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-ʿaṣr maʿ al-tatimma wa-l-fahāris (Arabic: يتيمة الدهر في شعراء أهل العصر مع التتمة والفهارس), ed. by Mufīd Muḥammad Qumayḥah, 6 vols (Bayrūt: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyah (Arabic: دار الكتب العلمية), 1983), vol. 3 p. 463 (ch 34), p. 468 (ch 34), p. 481 (ch 42)
• ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʻālibī, Tatimma:
  • Ahmad Shawqi Radwan (ed.), 'Thaʿālibī's “Tatimmat al-Yatīmah”: A Critical Edition and a Study of the Author as Anthologist and Literary Critic' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1972), pp. 67–69 [ch. 66].
  • Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-ʿaṣr maʿ al-tatimma wa-l-fahāris (Arabic: يتيمة الدهر في شعراء أهل العصر مع التتمة والفهارس), ed. by Mufīd Muḥammad Qumayḥah, 6 vols (Bayrūt: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyah (Arabic: دار الكتب العلمية), 1983), vol. 5 pp. 24-26 [''al-Tatimma'' ch. 11].

References

1. Erez Naaman, Literature and the Islamic Court: Cultural life under al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ‘Abbād (London: Routledge, 2016), p. 161 n. 78.
2. Carl Brockelmann, History of the Arabic Written Tradition Supplement Volume 1, trans. by Joep Lameer, Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East, Volume 117/3 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), p. 88; [trans. from ''Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur''].
3. Bilāl Urfahʹlī, The Anthologist's Art: Abu Mansur al-Tha'alibi and his Yatimat al-dahr, Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures, 37 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), .
4. Gabriele vom Bruck, 'al-Kibsī family', in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. by Kate Fleet and others, 3rd edn. Consulted online on 10 April 2020. .
5. Ahmad Shawqi Radwan, 'Thaʿālibī's “Tatimmat al-Yatīmah”: A Critical Edition and a Study of the Author as Anthologist and Literary Critic' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1972).
6. Web site: ص463 - كتاب يتيمة الدهر - الفصل من الرسالة المذكورة - المكتبة الشاملة الحديثة.
7. Web site: ص481 - كتاب يتيمة الدهر - الفصل من الرسالة المذكورة - المكتبة الشاملة الحديثة.
8. Web site: ص69 - كتاب يتيمة الدهر - تتمة القسم الثاني في محاسن أشعار أهل العراق بل أحاسنها وما يتصل بها من ملح أخبارهم - المكتبة الشاملة الحديثة.
9. [ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʻālibī]