At this point in our study it is worth recalling to mind Sainte-Beuve's famous dictum asserting the close relationship between an author and his productions, and at the same time how important this relationship is for a moral view of the author:
"For me, literature, the production of an author, is not distinct or at any rate not separable from the rest of the man and his make-up. I can relish a work by itself, but I find it hard to judge it apart from a knowledge of the man who wrote it; I am quite willing to say, 'As the tree is, so is its fruit'. Quite naturally, therefore, literary study leads me to moral study" (1).
So it is necessary to recognize how the productions of the Medinan poet of the eighteenth century, i.e. al-Sayyid al-Baytī, may be more easily explained against the background of his environment and the activities in which the poet was personally involved. So we have dealt previously with his poetical reflections concerning the struggle between the Medinan population and their neighbouring rivals. Similarly, we have noticed his self-expression in describing the conditions of the city of YanbuC. Here the poet showed his ability to depict colourful and impressive pictures of his experience with ravaging insects which made his life in the city quite unbearable. The tone of the poet in depicting this scene one of irony.
Al-Baytī applied this same tone of language (2) in his productions which expressed his anger and dissatisfaction of the people with whom he dealt. As in every age and every culture, the literary genre of satire plays a major role in expressing the pain which afflicts sensitive or thoughtful people as a result of their (disappointed) idealism in respect of their society and its individual people. In different poems by al-Sayyid al-Baytī, we recognize his disappointment of the people who were considered by society at large as worthy Muslim clerics or men of letters, while in his view they were empty-minded people whose contribution to the circle of learing and its seekers was insignificant. In a poem written for one of his friends, Sayyid Ahmad ibn Yahyā al-Azharī (3), al-Baytī launched his attack on the religious groups who were proud of their own importance, but who were in the poet's estimation otherwise contemptible:
("We were afflicted by living among a group of people who hid the deception of religion under their turbans. Their baseness vies in nobility with every noble leader. It is hard to believe that they are the descendants of Adam (5). May Allāh accomplish his justice upon them and may they suffer loss").
In other poetical pieces well constructed for his satirical purpose, al-Baytī engaged in a bitter attack on the people who tried to gain recognition in society through their alleged descent from families of Ansār (6). Not only did he close his piece by throwing doubt on this claim, but since it was his aim to undermine this presumption, he commenced his piece by saying:
("Do not be deceived by a group who seek prestige and precedence. They have advanced, boasted, strengthened themselves, and put on airs. They claim they are the sons of Qayla (8), but they are lesser and meaner. They are not the helpers of the Prophet, but have become Christians!").
In these lines, al-Baytī makes use of a sequence of nine verbs, which all help to describe the particular activity and business of these pretenders in establishing their claims to recognition. In addition to this, the poet repeats the rhyme in three of these four lines by incorporating both assonance and alliteration. Thus, the rhyme of the first line is tasaddarū ("seek precedence"), in the second line it is takabbarū ("put on airs"), and in the fourth line it is yatanassarū ("they have become Christians"). The repetition of the same three letters (rā', wāw, and alif) in each rhyme of these three lines is also a commendable achievement from the point of view of the old Arab critics (9) and here it serves to capture the reader's attention through the strong sounds recited by the poet and thus to convey the message which the poem intended. The poet was at the same time very careful in choosing for his rhymes verbs whose meanings would express the precise tenor of his criticisms. So, in the rhyme of the first line, the verb tasaddara always suggests to the ordinary person that somebody tries to attain the highest point in ranking but not in a natural way, since he appears to be the wrong person in the wrong place, and his behaviour is lacking in respectability. Even though we must acknowledge the individual poetic talent of al-Baytī in making the appropriate allusions to ancient Arabic verse of the golden age which we have found in his work, as also in his emulation of its rhymes and metres, on the other hand we see that the poet is still attracted by the common methods which most of the poets of his own age liked to follow in embellishing their verses with various artificial rhetorical devices. So, in the fourth line of the piece cited above, we notice an imperfect example of the use of jinās (10) (paronomasia) between the two words Ansār, in the first hemistich, and yatanassarū, in the second hemistich. The role played by jinās here is that of suggesting to the reader the false self-aggrandizement of the people attacked by the poet and hinting at the difference between the people's presumption and the actual reality of their characters.
As well as this satirical verse composed by al-Baytī against the clerics of his day who sought to rank themselves at the pinnacle of society with their claim to be descendants of the aboriginal settlers of the city, the Ansār, al-Baytī also levelled his attack against another group, the udabā', or littérateurs, or more accurately against their productions which came under severe fire. This demonstrates the discernment of the poet in realising how these productions composed by some of his contemporaries had strayed from originality and innovation. So, he took up his criticism of their lucubrations as follows:
("The literary men of this time are stupid people dressed in the clothes of the sharp-witted ones. Supercilious is their behaviour, while they are smaller than the finest dust. Their brains betoken the season of autum and their poetry breathes the season of winter. Their love-poetry sounds like a ceremony of mourning, as it combines feebleness and chill. It is the very sickness of the ear and heart, as if it were the time of pestilence. One would fear that the person praised might pass away, since this poetry has the cold of winter. Oh, for exiled culture, lost amongst these people!").
In this passage, al-Sayyid al-Baytī not only reveals himself as a satirist, but shows himself also a champion of literary criticism in his time, as he frankly expresses his discontent at the quality of the poetry of his age. As that which most betokened the malaise of contemporary verse, he chose to let his condemnation fall upon panegyric, which with eulogy and love-poetry at that time, manifest either a lack of innovative skill in the subject, or a want of modernization in form (12). Al-Baytī did not intend a general overview of versification in his day, but he laid his finger at the heart of poetry's weakness in the panegyrical compositions of the time. As he observed in these lines, his discontent arose from the feebleness and lack of genuine warmth which disfigured this verse. Further, we recognize that al-Baytī's accusation of feebleness (rakāka) was not directed against the linguistic aspects of this poetry, but rather against the weakness which was evident in its meanings, since the word burūda ("coolness") was used by him to describe the funereal chill of lines that should have exuded warmth. Furthermore, the second hemistich of the same line (13) contains al-Baytī's accusation against another defect in this verse, which was that it actually gave the wrong impression, to such an extents that it contradicted its confessed aim. Thus, he observed that panegyrical verse had the tone of elegy although its aim was in fact to praise. This last point of al-Baytī's criticism reminds us of the dictum enunciated by earlier Arab critics such as Ibn Tabātabā' (14), who stated that among the underlying causes of beauty in poetry making it acceptable and comprehensible, was its actual correspondence to the conditions for which it was devised (15).
We are here with a poet who depicted a real-file situation of intellectual people who were supposed to be the élite of society and who at the same time did not avoid the opportunity of subjecting their works to critical review. He succeeds in impressing us with the two aspects of his criticism the literary men themselves and also their poetical works - and in achieving this one picture of the shortcomings both of the authors and their works, the most notable device he employs is metaphor, i.e. the abandoning of the direct method in handing the elements of the picture in favour of a more imaginative approach. An example of this is his comparison between the supercilious personalities of the people whom he satirized and the finest dust (16). Thus he suggests, if that is the way that they themselves behave, then what may be expected of their works? Here the poet sought to expose its poverty by comparing it metaphorically with the season of winter, meaning that it was totally lacking in fertile imagination, just as the winter of the poet's city Medina was the quiescent season for agricultural production, implying that their poetical works were quite unseasonable, like the climate of Medina which in winter-time was most severe and created many difficulties for the inhabitants of the city. But what about the brains of these personalities who produced such unskilful works? In the same line of the poem (17), the metaphorical expression described these brains as being in the season of autumn, a further indirect method of emphasizing their emptiness of any valued ideas, so that what came out of them looked like the moribund products of the season of autumn, with the fading colours of living things, to be followed swiftly by their total disintegration. While it was the obvious influence of the environment which led the poet to choose the metaphors of winter and autumn, with which his listeners would be perfectly familiar, they would also be alerted to the social disease with which they would also be familiar, i.e. the shortcoming in the brains and the works of these self-styled leaders in culture.
We should note, however, that while al-Baytī criticized the works of his contemporary poets and their poor quality, he himself betrayed some weakness in his poetical works, as the sixth line (18) cited above shows. Here, the rhyming necessity of the poem forced him to select a word which does not fit rightly within the line. The rhyme al-shitā' ("winter") is not the appropriate word to choose here, for two reasons. First, alongside the preceding word, bard ("coolness"), it adds no useful meaning. The first hemistich of the line suggests that the panegyrical material which al-Baytī criticized would greatly astound the subject being praised, so that instead of raising his spirits, it would rather produce a more than metaphorical mortification, Then, in the second hemistich, to further indicate the effect of this funereal panegyric, al-Baytī compares it to the chilly blast of winter which might bring death to anybody exposed to it. This seems quite redundant after the preceding telling words and it is only the necessity of rhyme that apparently forced the poet to make this unsuitable comparison. Secondly, the rhyming word al-shitā' in the sixth line has already been used in the third line (19), so that its repetition here must be considered a defect comparable to that previously noted in the descriptive poem by the same poet (20).
In addition to these two aspects of al-Baytī's satirical verse, one dealing with the circle of Culamā' (religious clerics) and the other dealing with the literary men and their works, we notice further some extracts from his verse which satirize the neglect of patronage toward his profession of adab (literature). His complaint is levelled against the powerful and the rich who were less helpful than the poet anticipated. The same complaint may be found at other times and in other places, as for example in the writings of the famous Roman satirist Juvenal (21), who turned his attack in one of his famous Satirae against the rich people who neglected literary men (22). Even in the golden age of Arabic literature, we find poets like Ahmad ibn Jahza (23), who, in sharp and critical lines, attributed all his problems to the ill-supported profession of adab which he resolved to abandon completely (24).
Al-Baytī's own critical sentiments upon the profession of adab are found in a poem composed in favour of a superior (25). While implicitly referring to the lack of help from this person, he proceeded not only to satirize his profession, but his anger extended to include some well-known personages in the history of Arabic literature. He said,
("Useless for me are al-Khalīl's pronouncements on thes measures mafāCilun, faCūlun, and what al-Fasīh and ThaClab say – Zayd stood, CAmr and khalid came; she hit, the women hit, you hit, he hits (29) - as God is my witness, since I have left your court, I tighten my belt against hunger").
The poet here let off steam against a demanding life, adding to his criticism a sense of mockery which reflected on the personalities of al-Khalīl and ThaClab, as well as on some of the dull formulae of grammar. He blamed all these elements as causes of the desperate conditions he was suffering from, which he depicted metaphorically in the words of the second hemistich of the third line.
In another extract from a poem which he wrote to his frined Ahmad ibn CAmmār al-Jazā'irī, who performed the pilgrimage in the year 1167/1753-4, al-Baytī showed his dissatisfaction of the treatment accorded to knowledgeable people, amongst whom he counted himself. While he did not blame any specific person for the neglect of literary men, he seems more conscious in his complaint of the untoward vicissitudes of fate:
("Woe to the shaykh who practises a new profession after his old one. After medicine he turns to farriery. Fate has torn up and confused the likes of me. We have seen the gathering plans which rule like a pair of compasses (31) over us").
The poet did not directly indicate the origin or his problems as one of the educated class, but ironically referred in the first line to his original profession of medicine, for which he had become well known in Medinan society of the eighteenth century (32). From this high calling he had been compelled to turn instead to the work of a farrier with all its implications and thus he directs his satire against his own personal fate. In the second hemistich of the second line he depicts himself and those of his circle as being singled out by a gathering of schemers to be the objects of unfair treatment. He employs the figure of the birkār ("compass") to envisage the people set against himself and his colleagues, expressing the fear that he and they must have anticipated from the actions of these enemies. The image shows that what they feared was actual aggression from a sector of society which he did not name. He managed nevertheless to make us imagine how much he suffered along with others of his profession when they chose to be counted among the literary men or educated people. In these two lines al-Baytī sought to embellish his style with another example of jinās (33) (paronomasia). Here, however, the embellishment is at the expense of meaning, because there is no difference in sense between the two words. It is merely disguised repetition, adding no useful development of thought and must therefore be considered a defect in the linguistic side of the poem's construction.
Some critics explain the role of irony as a device used by the satirist to convey his meaning in an implicit rather than an overt manner. E.g.: "Irony, which exploits the relationship between appearance and reality, is its [Satire's] chief device, but as Northrop Frye points out in his essay on satire and irony… it is irony of a militant kind. 'Irony is consistent both with complete realism of content and with the suppression of attitude on the part of the author. Satire demands at least a token fantasy, a content which the reader recognizes as grotesque, and at least an implicit moral standard'". (R. Fowler, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms [London, 1982] p. 167).
Ahmad ibn Yahyā ibn CAbd al-Rahmān ibn abī al-Tayyib al-Hasanī al-Hanafī al-Azharī (i.e. of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo) was born in Medina in 1103/1691-2. He became a preacher and a prayer-leader in 1127/1715. He was expelled from the city of Medina after his involvement in one of the civil strifes of his time and came to settle in Mecca in the company of the preacher CAbd Allāh al-Barrī. He died in al-Tā'if in 1161/1748. See Tuhfat al-Muhibbīn, p. 67f.
The two tribes settled in Medina, al-Aws and al-Khazraj, were known as Abnā' Qayla after the name of their mother, Qayla. See D. Hassan, vol. I, p. 16.
"Tadjnīs or djinās (a.) paronomasia, play upon words, is a figure of rhetoric (badīC) which consists in using in the same phrase two words of a similar or almost similar sound but of different meanings". (M. Ben Cheneb, art. "Tadjnīs", EI, vol.IV, p. 599f).
Abū al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Tabātabā' lived in Isfahan and died there in 322/933-4. See Ihsān CAbbās, Ta'rīkh al-Naqd al-Adabī Cind al-CArab (Beirut, 1391/1971) p. 133.
"Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) (c. AD 60-c. 36), Roman satirist, whose 16 satires lack Horace's urbanity, being exercises in rhetorical indignation against the vices of his age… Imitations of his work are found in J.Hall, Jonson, Oldham, and Dr Johnson". (M. Drabble, op.cit., p. 523).
Abū al-Hasan Ahmad ibn JaCfar ibn Mūsā ibn Yahyā ibn Khālid ibn Barmak al-Barmakī, nicknamed Jahza by Ibn al-MuCtazz, was born in 224/838-9 and died in ShaCbān, 324/935-6. See Irshād, vol. I, p, 383f.
"Abû' l-Abbâs Ahmad ibn Yahyâ ThaClab (815-904)… wrote the Kitâb al-Fasîh, on the form and meaning of doubtful words, and the Qawâ'id al-ShiCr, rules for poetical composition, and also collected and published the dîwâns of Zuhair and al-ACshâ. He died at Bagdâd, from an accident". (C. Huart, op.cit., p. 152f).
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