1595956

Maisonneuve & Larose
High Culture and Popular Culture in Medieval Islam

Author(s): Boaz Shoshan
Source: Studia Islamica, No. 73 (1991), pp. 67-107
Published by: Maisonneuve & Larose
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1595956
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HIGH CULTURE
AND POPULAR CULTURE
IN MEDIEVAL ISLAM(*)
Studied with an emphasis on its social context the culture

created in the medieval world of Islam(1) may appear less as a
unity, based on largely shared principles abstracted by modern
scholarship,(2) but more like a set of blocks intertwined in some
complex manner. One need not be committed to a Marxist
analysis to appreciate Gramsci's observation that, in terms of
culture, people (and this should apply also to medieval Muslims) do
not act as collective homogeneities, but rather in several,
(*) Author's note: Preliminary research for this article was done while being
fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University during the
academic year 1984-85. A generous fellowship granted by the Alexander von
Humboldt-Stiftung three years later enabled me to complete the study at the
Orientalisches Seminar of Freiburg University. I am much indebted to all these
institutions.
(1) Being a borrowed concept, "medieval" in Islamic history involves uncertain-
ties as regards periodiziation, let alone applicability. Here it has been chosen,
quite arbitrarily, for the period between the second and ninth Islamic centuries,
corresponding to the eighth and fifteenth centuries AD. All dates in this article
are in terms of the Christian era.
(2) The search for common denominators in the cultural history of the Islam
world has been a marked trend in modern scholarship. It is noteworthy, perhap
hardly surprising, that results have been diverse. Though it is not my intention to
deny the existence of shared cultural "items" or "sets" among the various
groupings in past Islamic societies--in fact, I shall return to these at a later stag
in this article-they seem to derive mainly from the religious sphere and, beside
are fairly well known and need not engage us in this context. At least they mu
now be studied as they actually appeared in history, not as preconceived notions of
modern researchers who rely, one should emphasize, on little historical data.
68 BOAZ SHOSHAN
interrelated strata.(3) How

problem in itself. A learned
cautioned that "dividing lin
blurred and shifting and the
defining the economic co
mind, it is my intention in th
brief one possible scheme o
Islam.(5)
Now obviously just to present such a scheme is insufficient,
perhaps even misleading, since cultural blocks or "subcultures"
within one society rarely stay apart but rather exert an "osmotic"
influence on one another with the result that though the
distinction popular/elite remains, the inventories of each culture do
change. "Popular forms become enhanced in cultural value, go
up the cultural escalator - and find themselves on the opposite
side. Other things cease to have high cultural value, and are
appropriated into the popular, becoming transformed in the
process".(6) It is therefore my aim in the second part to look
beyond an apparently immobile construct into the inner dynamics
and constant vicissitudes of a cultural system, what Jean Wirth
has recently called "the dialectic of change".(7) There is a set of
(3) Antonio Gramsci, Marxismo e letteratura (Rome, 1975), p. 178, cited in

Georges Duby, "Probl6mes et methodes en histoire culturelle", in Jacques Le Goff
and B61a K6peczi (ed.), Objet et methodes de I'histoire de la culture (Paris, 1982), p. 16.
(4) Georges Duby, The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977), p. 14. Like Duby,
David Hall has recently stated: "Culture has a social basis, but the relationship of
culture to society is more fluid ..." And also: "Culture lived more freely than any
one-to-one relationship [with social structure] can recognize. "See Steven
L. Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the
Nineteenth Century (Berlin -New York- Amsterdam, 1984), p. 11. In the same vein
is Roger Chartier's argument that" ... the classification of professional groups
[which] corresponds with a classification of cultural products and practices can no
longer be accepted uncritically". See Understanding Popular Culture, p. 233.
(5) My treatment is especially of the Arabic speaking lands between Egypt and
Iraq.
(6) Stuart Hall, "Notes on Deconstructing 'the Popular'", in Raphael Samuel
(ed.), People's History and Socialist Theory (London. 1981), p. 234. For the point of
mutual influence among subcultures see also Robert Mandrou, "Cultures populaire
et savante: rapport et contacts", in Jacques Beauroy et al. (ed.). The Wolf and the
Lamb, Popular Culture in France From the Old Regime to the Twentieth Century
(Saratoga, 1976), p. 18.
(7) In Kaspar von Greyerz (ed.), Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe,
1500-1800 (London, 1984). p. 77.
HIGH CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE IN MEDIEVAL ISLAM 69
questions relevant in this regard such as how rigid were th

cultural divisions? How did the various subcultures within the
larger system interact? How did those at the top, so to sp
view those below them concerning issues cultural and vice
versa? Such questions, for some years now on the agenda of
historians, should be of interest also to historians of Islam and here
is a preliminary attempt to consider them. I hope that in what
follows "society" and "culture", usually only loosely connected in
the writings of so-called Orientalists, appear a more integrated
pair. Herbert Gans's dictum that "... culture does not exist apart
from people who create and use it, except perhaps in unvisited
museums"(8) is here much to the point.
There was a medieval Islamic court culture which developed at

the courts of caliphs, and later at those of provincial rulers,
sultans, and political dignitaries--many among them of military
stock--of various ranks. Its foremost manifestation was in the
existence of a royal protocol, a special courtly etiquette, and
ceremonies, all cultural derivatives of the realm of political
conduct.(9) When Muslim rulers took a rest, so to speak, from
ruling, they turned to their exclusive ways of entertainment:
parties, hunting, and various sport games.('0) Sheer luxury and
(8) Herbert J. Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture (New York, 1974), p. 11.
(9) Oleg Grabar, "Ceremonial and Art at the Umayyad Court" (unpublished Ph.
D. diss., Princeton, 1955), Ch. 11; Idem, "Notes sur les cer6monies umayyades", in
Myriam Rosen-Ayalon (ed.), Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet (Jerusalem, 1977),
pp. 51-60; D. Sourdel "Questions de cer6monial 'abbaside'", Revue des itudes
islamiques, XXVIII (1960), esp. pp. 136-148; M. Canard, "C6r6monial fatimide et
c6r6monial byzantin", Byzantion, XXI (1951), esp. pp. 396-404; Idem, "La
procession du nouvel an chez les Fatimides", Annales de l'Institut d'PItudes
Orientales de la Faculte des Lettres d'Alger, X (1952), pp. 364-398; Karl Stowasser,
"Manners and Customes at the Mamluk Court", Muqarnas, II (1984), pp. 15-17.
(10) For parties in the Abbasid court see Eckhard Neubauer, Musiker am HIof der
frihen Abbasiden (Ph. D. Diss., Frankfurt, 1965), pp. 71-94. 1 owe this reference to
Professor W. Ende of Freiburg. For sport games and hunting as royal recreation
in the Abbasid period see Muhammad Manazir Ahsan. Social Life Under the
Abbasids, 170-289 AH 786-902 AD (London, 1979), pp. 202-205, 234-235, 243-249,
252-254, 259. One of the best descriptions of hunting practices and mores is
provided by the "aristocrat" Usama Ibn Munqidh (1095-1188), member of an Arab
petty-dynasty from Northern Syria. In his memoires he described some hunting
70 BOAZ SHOSHAN
collosal expenditure were a c

world of Islam and are "lav
Certain genres of Islamic lit
in the sense that they were written for the education and
entertainment of rulers, quite often for some particular
ruler. This is the case of etiquette books such as the "Book of the
Crown" (Kilab at-taj), composed probably around the mid-ninth
century,(12) and Hilal as-Sabi's "Regulations at the Caliph's
Palace" (Rusum dar al-khilafa), written in Baghdad and dedicated
to Caliph al-Qaim (r. 1031-1075).(13) Administrative books
expeditions of provincial governors in which he took part, and especially the

hunting habits of his own father. See An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior,
Memoires of Usama Ibn-Munqidh, trans. Philip K. Hitti (New York, 1929), pp. 222-
254; G. Rex Smith, "A New Translation of Certain Passages of the Hunting Section
of Usama Ibn Munqidh's I'tibar". J. Semitic Stud, XXVI (1981), pp. 235-
255. For Mamluk games see David Ayalon, "Notes on the Furfisiyya Exercises
and Games in the Mamluk Sultanate", Scripla Hierosolymitana (1961) esp. pp. 53-
57; A. Abd ar-Raziq, "Deux jeux sportifs en lgypte au temps des Mamlfiks",
Annales islamologiques, XII (1974), pp. 95-130; Stowasser, "Manners", pp. 18-19;
Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art (Albany, 1983), pp. 236-237, 342
n. 287.
(11) Thus the Byzantine ambassadors who entered the caliph's audience at the
Palace of the Tree in Baghdad in 917, saw to their astonishment (according to our
Arabaic source) a tree of silver, weighing 500,000 dirhams (equall to about 50,000
ounces), having on its boughs mechanical birds, all singing, equally fashioned in
silver. See Guy Le Strange, "A Greek Embassy to Baghdad in 917 A.D.", J. Royal
Asiatic Soc., 1897, p. 40. At a garden party which the governor of Egypt gave in
the tenth century to an army officer carpets were spread on table, gold and silver
ornaments and figures of camphor and amber were placed. Two silver bowls were
set before him, one full of gold, the other full of silver coins. When the guest left,
everything on which the food was served or which was placed before him,
everything out of which he had eaten or taken his drinks, was sent to him on two
horses with gold saddles and bridles. See Adam Mez, The Renaissance of Islam
(London, 1937), pp. 366-67. For references to luxury in other courts of Muslim
rulers see e.g., Clifford E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, Their Empire in Afghanistan
and Eastern Iran 994:1040 (Edingburgh, 1963), pp. 135-137; Stowasser, "Manners",
p. 18.
(12) A. K. S. Lambton in Joseph Schacht with C. E. Bosworth (ed.), The Legacy
of Islam, 2nd., (Oxford, 1974), pp. 409-410. For a French translation see
Ch. Pellat, Le livre de la couronne (Paris, 1954). For an argument that the author
of this book (traditionally known as pseudo-Jahiz) was the ninth-century
Muhammad ibn al-Harith at-Taghlibi (or ath-Thaalibi) and that the book's original
title was Kitab akhlaq al-muluk is in Gregor Schoeler, "Verfasser und Titel des dem
ahiz zugeschriebenen sog. Kitab at-TaO", Zeit. Deutsche Morgendlindische Gesells-
chafp, CIII (1980), pp. 217-225. I owe this reference to Professor W. Ende of
Freiburg.
(13) Ed. M. Awwad (Baghdad, 1964). There is an English trans. by Elie
A. Salem (Beirut, 1977).
and "Mirrors for Princes" had been an old Iranian genre wh

survived in the Islamic Near East as court literature until as late
as the nineteenth century. They dealt with rules of politica
conduct, the notion of "royal justice", and the preserving of
"natural" social order.(14) Of more practical nature were hunt
guides,(15) military manuals,(16) equestrian treatises (furusiyya),(
and books on "table manners" (adab al-maida).(18) In the real
of belles-lettres at least two genres have been recently identified
courtly. One, short pieces relating the appearance of artisan
before the ruler and intended for recital (or performance) at
court.(19) The other, the genre of courtly romances, whic
(14) Lambton, in Legacy, pp. 418-420. For a general treatment of this genre
idem, "Islamic Mirrors for Princes", in La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome, 197
pp. 419-442, rep. in A. K. S. Lambton, Theory and Practice in Medieval Pers
Government (London,1980).
(15) For a list of works see Ahsan, Social Life, pp. 202-203 n. 2.
(16) A "Book on the Manners of Conducting War and Military Formation" w
written already for Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754-775). Later manuals were written
the famous Saladin and for Mamluk sultans and high-ranking officiers. S
A. Rahman Zaky, "Military Literature of the Arabs", Cahiers d'histoire igyptienn
VII (1955), pp. 149-160, also in Islamic Culture, XXX (1956), pp. 163-172;
Cl. Cahen, "Un traitk d'armurerie compose pour Saladin", Bull. d'Etudes Orienta
XII (1947-48), pp. 103-163; A Muslim Manual of War, ed. and trans. Geor
T. Scanlon (Cairo, 1961); E. McEwen, "Persian Archery Texts: Chapter Eleven
Fakhr-i Mudabbir's Adab Al-Harb (Early Thirteenth Century)", Islamic Quarter
XVIII (1974), pp. 76-99. A 14th or 15th-century manuscript of an archer
manual, Kitab ghunyat at-tulldb fi ma'rifat ramy an-nushshab, written by o
Taybugha al-Ashrafi al-Yunani, was translated with an introduction as Sara
Archery by J. D. Latham and W. F. Paterson (London, 1970).
(17) E.g., Nihdyat as-sul wa'l umniya fi ta'allum amal al-furaisiyya which could
roughly translated as "All One Need Know About Horsmanship", a book dedica
to the Mamluk viceroy of Syria by al-Aqsarayi (died Damascus 1348). See G. R
Smith, Medieval Muslim Horsmanship: A Fourteenth-Century Arabic Cava
Manual (London, 1979). For furusiyya guides see also Hassanein Rabie, "T
Training of the Mamluk F1ris", in V. J. Parry and M. E. Yapp (ed.), War
Technology and Society in the Middle East (London, 1975), pp. 153-163; M
Kretschmar, Pferd und Reiter im Orient: Untersuchung zur Reiterkultur Vorderas
in der Seldschukenzeit (Hildesheim - New York, 1980), pp. 281-360.
(18) For a list of works see Ahsan, Social Life, pp. 157-158. This is a gen
which could be associated with an "aristocratic" culture in the sense of a circle
wider than just the court.
(19) This genre appeared around the mid-ninth century, probably at the cou
the then capital at Samarra (Iraq). Judging by the authors associated with
could assume that there occurred a long-time competition among them to a
caliphs' enthusiasm. A possible forerunner of this genre is the "Epistle o
72 BOAZ SHOSHAN
flourished in the eleventh to

characteristics were the biogr
sis on inner experiences revea
the stress on personal aspir
centrality of love.(20)
As far as the arts are conce
Islamic art of the palace, man
mural painting. Examples ab
on the basis of archaeologic
extant texts.(21) Also the a
largely associated with med
many examples of manuscrip
dignitaries of the political eli
Crafts of the Masters" (Risala fi sina

for Caliph al-Mutasim (833-842) or, a
Mutawakkil (847-861), and intended
Jahiz stated its didactic aim to con
excluded from their knowledge,
noteworthy that one copy of Jahiz's
serving in office between 1012 and
acquired by the latter. See Joseph
Contrast", Studia Islamica LVI (19
in two installments (Studia Islami
120) is a masterful analysis of this
(20) Julie Scott Meisami, "Kings
Persian Romance", Edebiyat, N.S.
Court Poetry (Princeton, 1987).
(21) For architecture see e.g. Alo
Schlumberger, "Le fouilles de Qasr
238; 324-373; Robert W. Hamilton
Lezin, "Les salles nobles des palais m
p. 63-148. For mural painting at t
(Iraq) see Richard Ettinghausen, A
illustration on p. 191. For the sam
(r. 1101-1130) see Ettinghausen, "P
n", Ars Islamica, IX (1942), p. 112
Ghaznavid palace at Lashkar-i Baz
New Ed. (C. E. Bosworth). For mu
see Donald Wilber, "The Timurid Court: Life in Gardens and Tents", Iran. XVIII
(1979), p. 129. For sixteenth-century Iran see Ehsan Echraghi, "Description
contemporaine des peintures murales disparues des palais de S~h Tahmasp A
Qazvin", in C. Adle (ed.), Art et Socidte dans le monde iranien (Paris. 1982), pp. 117-
126. What is needed in terms of modern research is more analytical work of the
kind one finds in Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven, 1973).
pp. 141-178, a treatment of the so-called Umayyad desert palaces.
arts.(ss) Metalwork, that is gold and silver objects, were

centuries financed by Islamic courts.(s3)
Scenes of hunting and figures of musicians and dancers, clearly
reflecting favourite pastime of the ruling elite, are part of w
may be called the princely cycle in medieval Islamic art. It fi
appeared in the early eighth century in Umayyad palaces in Syri
and then flourished under the Abbasids.(24) Thus excavations
the Iraqi town of Samarra, Abbasid capital between 838 and 8
have recovered mural paintings which thematically deal wit
(22) To take just a few examples, the only illustrated manuscript of the fam
"Book of Songs" (Kitdb al-aghdni) known to have survived was in all likelih
prepared around 1217 for Badr ad-Din Lu'lu', prince of Mosul. The frontisp
miniature most likely depicts the prince himself. See S. M. Stern, "A New Vol
of the Illustrated Aghini Manuscript", Ars Orientalis, 11 (1957), p. 501. Sev
wellknown Shahnama manuscripts, among them the so-called Demotte, w
produced under royal patronage. See Ettinghausen, "Some Comments on
Medieval Iranian Art", Artibus Asiae, XXXI (1969), p. 300; For Mamluk patronage
see Duncan Haldane, Mamluk Painting (Warminster, 1978), p. 11-12.
(23) For silver work as court and aristocratic art in medieval Iran see
A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, "Essais sur la sociologie de I'art islamique- I: argenterie
et f6odalit6 dans l'Iran m6di6val", in C. Adle (ed.), Art et socitii, esp. pp. 170-
172. The literature on court patronage of metalwork in medieval Islam is vast.
See, e.g., D. S. Rice, "The Brasses of Badr al-Din Lulu", Bull. School Asian
African Stud., XIII (1949-51), pp. 627-634; J. W. Allan, "Later Mamluk Metal-
work", Oriental Art, N.S. XV (1969), pp. 38-43; idem, "Later Mamluk Metal-
work-II", Oriental Art, N.S. XVII (1971), pp. 156-164; Sheila S. Blair, "Artist and
Patronage in Late Fourteenth-Century Iran in the Light of Two Catalogues of
Islamic Metalwork", Bull. School. Asian African Stud., XLVIII (1985), pp. 53-59;
Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks (Washington D.C., 1981),
pp. 50-116.
(24) E.g., Grabar, "Ceremonial and Art", Chs. IV-VII; idem, The Illustration of
the Maqamat (Chicago and London, 1984), pp. 141 and 177 n. 29; idem and Andre
Grabar. "L'essor des arts inspir6s par les cours princi6res A la fin du premier
millhnaire: princes musulmans et princes chr~tiens", L'Occidente e l'Islam nell' alto
Medioevo, II (Spoleto, 1965), esp. pp. 864-872. One should mention in this context
Shepherd's argument, based mainly on her interpretation of Sasanian art, that a
"princely cycle" did not actually exist in medieval Islam. Rather than depicting
court life, pleasures and pastime, the drawings of banquet and hunt had been, at
least originally, illustrations of an abstract theme, namely, life after death. This
iconography should thus be seen as religious, not secular. See Dorothy
G. Shepherd, "Banquet and Hunt in Medieval Islamic Iconography", in Ursula
E. McCracken et al. (ed.), Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E. Miner (Baltimore, 1974),
pp. 79-92. Shepherd's revisionist view, one might note, assumes a direct
continuation into Islam of a Sasanian world-view. For reservations about
Shepherd's argument see also Eva Baer, "The Ruler in Cosmic Setting:
medieval Islamic iconography", in Abbas Daneshvari (ed.), Essays in Isla
74 BOAZ SHOSHAN
dance and hunt. The "timeless grandeur of royal subjects

exercised a great appeal and established an international style that
was copied by the contemporary minor courts and continued to
influence the royal arts of the following centuries".(26) Courtly
themes appear in the twelfth century also in illuminated
books,(26) as well as on metallic objects and ceramic wares,
apparently made for rulers.(27) Stylistically, the medieval Islamic
"princely cycle" could be characterized by its overwhelming
symmetry, the rejection of all individual sound, expression, or
gesture. The ruler, as well as other persons of his entourage,
appearing in frontispieces or on wares, are presented in a strictly
frontal, motionsless manner.(28) Another feature is symbolism,
the task of which is to represent royal might.(29)
and Architecture in Honor of K. Otto-Dorn (Udena, 1981), p. 16. For criticism of the
assumption of Islamic apreciation of ancient Iranian symbolism see
R. W. Hamilton, "Khirbat Al Mafjar: the Bath Hall Reconsidered", Levant X
(1978), p. 128. Hamilton notes: "We may by no means assume that the ancient
society we are studying read into the ornaments of an earlier culture the same
message as those ornaments conveyed to the imaginations of their original
inventors. Arabia bred no art historians".
(25) Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 42-44, 52-53 and illustration on p. 191.
(26) E.g., in a celebrated copy of the epic Shshnama produced for the Timurid
prince Baysonghor in Herat in 1430, the painting of "Rustam and Esfandeyar
seated together on the eve of their duel" not only shows the splendour of the kingly
setting in a spring landscape, but also the formality of the court where, "according
to protocol, every attendant is at rigid attention at his station and only necessary
actions are rendered". In the double frontispiece of Sa'di's Bustan painted by
Behzad for the Timurid Sultan Hosein Baiqara in Herat in 1489 we encounter
"Drinking scene at the sultan's court" which reveals an opulent setting in front of a
charming kiosk and a display of tilework, carpets, and other refinement of roya
life. Richard Ettinghausen, "Originality and Conformity in Islamic Art", in Amin
Banani and Speros Vryonis Jr. (ed.), Individualism and Conformity in Classica
Islam (Wiesbaden, 1977), pp. 85-86, and pls. 5 and 7.
(27) For metalwork see e.g. D. S. Rice, "Studies in Islamic Metal work", Bull.
School Asian and African Stud., XIV (1952), p. 571; Baer, Metalwork, pp. 149-150
230-231. For ceramics see e.g. Mohamed Mostafa, The Museum of Islamic Art, A
Short Guide, 2nd ed. (Cairo, 1961), p. 66 fig. 62; H. Bessier and M. Schneider
Musikgeschichte in Bildern, III (Leipzig, 1966), figs. 19, 28-30.
(28) Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 59-66, and figs. on pp. 58-65. Thus four
out of five surviving frontispiece miniatures of the Kitab al-aghani, dating from
1217, depict the ruler of Mosul (probably owner of the manuscript), Badr ad-Din
Lu'lu', surrounded by his attendants. Apparently they are not meant to be
realistic portraits of the man; the style is of rather stylized, stereotyped
figures. See D. S. Rice, "The Aghini Miniatures and Religious painting in Islam",
Burlington Magazine, XCV (1953), pp. 128-34.
(29) An exemple is the theme of the lion-bull fight. See Willy Hartner and
The second cultural block which existed in medieval Islam could

be labeled "learned culture" in the sense of the culture of religious
scholars (ulama), belletrists (udaba) and other "men of the
pen". It should have been well known to us, since a large part,
perhaps the largest, of our picture of medieval Islam derives from
these circles. Recent scholarship has also revealed the social
importance of the medieval ulama.(30) Still one finds it difficult to
write meaningful generalizations of this culture except to confirm
its past existence. For on the one hand, considering it from the
side of "production", it can be reconstructed through the texts
written by individuals, and yet these are so many and variegated
that they defy generalizations. Also, to concentrate on the
contents of written texts or biographies of outstanding individuals
is, of course, far from supplying an adequate picture of the culture
of the learned as a social sector. For on the other hand, we miss
entirely the "consumption" aspect, the knowlege of which could
make the study of learned culture of certain periods and regions
meaningful. There are important questions in this respect still
untreated: what books did scholars study and read?(31) What
were their (shared?) ideas as regards scholarship? Without
addressing these and similar issues this important section of the
culture under consideration is bound to remain only partly known.
Richard Ettinghausen, "The Conquering Lion, The Life Cycle of a Symbol", Oriens,
XVII (1964), pp. 161-171. For the cosmic theme in courtly art of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries see Baer, "The Ruler in Cosmic Setting", pp. 13-19. In 1984
there was in Paris an exhibition of the subject "Le Prince en terre d'Islam", dealing
with the Islamic royal image as reflected in the visual arts. For an illustrated
report see Archeologia, CXC (1984), pp. 31-41.
(30) E.g., Ira M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge,
Mass., 1967), esp. Ch. IV; R. W. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur (Cambridge,
Mass., 1973); Joan E. Gilbert, "The Ulama of Medieval Damascus and the
International World of Islamic Scholarship" (unpublished Ph. D. diss., Berkeley,
1978). Boaz Shoshan, "The 'Politics of Notables' in Medieval Islam", Asian and
African Studies (Haifa), XX (1986), pp. 179-215.
(31) The list of books owned by the fourteenth-century Burhan ad-Din Ibrahim
an-Nasiri of Jerusalem, a precious document about cultural history remains,
unfortunately, unique. See Ulrich Haarmann, "The Library of a Fourteenth
Century Jerusalem Scholar", Der Islam, LXI (1984), pp. 327-333.
76 BOAZ SHOSHAN
It was Adam Mez who, m

importance of the medieva
the tenth century merchan
civilization.(32) Now Mez ce
of merchants at the expens
scholars. Still his point sho
the third block in our propo
"lay" bourgeoisie.
To begin with "civilisation
at least for medieval Cairo,
detailed manner in Goitein's monumental work based on the
Cairene Geniza. The latter, although of Jewish provenance
more light than any Islamic source on the material as
of middle-class life style: housing, clothing, food, etc.(33) Tu
to the arts, we find that the bourgeois gradually imitat
culture of the ruling elite. The diffusion in the twelfth cent
artistic themes regularly associated with courtly art, int
social milieux is clear, for example, in the realm of meta
(32) Adam Mez, Die Rennaissance des Islams (Heidelberg, 1922), p. 442,
in S. D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden,
p. 243. Goitein's own "The Rise of the Middle-Eastern Bourgeoisie in
Islamic Times", in Studies, pp. 217-241, (originally published in J. World
III [1957], pp. 583-604), despite its misleading title, is basically an argume
the bourgeois base of post-Muhammadan Islam. Its most important point is
was largely members of the bourgeoisie who had developed Muslim religi
the backbone and very essence of Islam, as well as the kindred discipline
Traditions of the Prophet, the reading and the exegesis of the Kor
theology". And Goitein Adds: "The full-fledged religion of Islam as it ap
us through the writings of the third and fourth centuries of the Musli
prevaded by the spirit and ideas of the rising merchant class". See "Bour
pp. 218-219; Idem, "The Mentality of the Middle Class in Medieval Islam",
pp. 243-245. This important argument has been subsequently develo
Abraham L. Udovitch, Partnership and Profit in Medieval Islam (Princeto
and a number of articles by the same scholar.
(33) S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, IV: Daily Life (Berkeley
Angeles, 1983). For an argument about the validity of the Geniza sou
conclusions about the larger society see A Mediterranean Society, vol. I: E
Foundations (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), pp. 70-74. For Middle
housing in the Mamluk period see Laila A. Ibrahim, "Middle-Class Living
Mamluk Cairo: Architecture and Terminology", Art and Archeology Researc
XIV (1978), pp. 24-30. Mona Zakariya has studied a late Mamluk midd
dwelling, the construction of which she dates, with textual aid, to th
1522. See "Le Rab' de Tabbana", Annales islamologiques, XVI (1980), pp
297.
where decorations of bronze objects made for merchants sometim

emulated themes drawn out of court life. It seems that the choice
of enthroned persons, tournaments, and hunting provided non
courtiers with a sense of illusion. Objects carrying royal scenes
most likely flattered merchants by associating them with the
rulers' life style and thus reflected the nouveau rich of the rising
bourgeoisie which accumulated wealth, titles, and art in a
somewhat indiscriminate manner.(34)
The imitation of the ruling elite by the bourgeoisie in the sphere
of the arts is perherps obvious enough a phenomenon so let us turn
to two other questions. First, what sort of cultural creation
associated with the bourgeoisie in Islam could be characterized as
original? Second, what was the contribution of that bourgeoisie
to the cultural system as a whole?
Although a large part of the literary production in the medieval
Near East can be assumed to have been connected with a bour-
geois market, the evidence for that is by no means straightforw
and there is hardly any scholarly discussion of this possib
lity.(36) It has been raised with regard to only one literary gen
(34) Oleg Grabar, "The Illustrated Maqdmst of the Thirteenth Century

Bourgeoisie and the Arts", in A. H. Hourani and S. M. Stern (ed.), The Islam
(Oxford, 1970), p. 218; Richard Ettinghausen, "The 'Bobrinski kettle', Patro
Style of an Islamic Bronze", Gazelle des Beaux-Arts, 6 ser., XXIV (1943), pp
208. For the scenes of music, dancing, and drinking on the Bobrinski ware s
Baer, Metalwork, pp. 219-20 and n. 47. For a lustre plate, possibly from
twelfth century, presenting a seated figure and carrying the name of
probably) its patron, Umar ibn Ahmad at-Tusi, of a "bourgeois family" i
Iran, see S. M. Stern and Sofie Walzer, "A lustre Plate of Unusual Shape", Or
Art, IX (1963), pp. 213-215. For a general observation about diffusion of co
themes into the art of medieval Islamic bourgeoisie see also Oleg Grabar, "L
mineurs de l'Orient musulman a partir du milieu du xiie siecle", Cahiers
Civilisation Midiivale, XI (1968), p. 187 and figures 6-7. Grabar argues that
objects in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were accessible to whoever
afford them. His point that a name of a prince on an object did not necess
indicate patronage but the reign in which that object was produced seems, how
a speculation. What gave metal objects, originally used at the court, a s
bourgeois character is, according to Ettinghausen, the intermingling of Arabic
Persian in inscriptions on these objects as an expression of both officia
vernacular languages. It was possible only on objects free from supervision
court protocol. See Ettinghausen, "Bobrinski", p. 199.
(35) For some general remarks about the "wealthy bourgeois" setting of
literary production see G. E. von Grunebaum, "Aspects of Arabic Urban
Literature", 41-Andalus. XX (1955), pp. 276-277.
78 BOAZ SHOSHAN
the Maqamal, especially the M

the enormous popularity of
quantitative grounds, namely
thirteenth-century extant ma
In Grabar's opinion al-Hariri's
simplified plot limited to fi
racters - a narrator, who is a s
and a rogue, who turns up i
unlikely places and situations
government officials(3))-gai
highly literate, Arabic speak
in the Maqamal for its bourg
was its satirical value, its vo
puns, and even visual tricks such as alternating dotted and
undotted lines of poetry, in short the author's extraordinary
mastery of Arabic.(39) Bourgeois patronage of the Maqamat has
been further suggested on the basis of artistic evidence, that is,
the thirteen surviving illuminated manuscripts of al-Hariri's work,
eleven of which were produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth
(36) See arts. "al-Hamadhani" (H. Blach6re), "al-Hariri" (D. S. Margoliouth

and Ch. Pellat), "Makamat" (Ch. Pellat), all in Encyc. of Islam, New Ed;
Abdelfattah Kilito, Les seances : Ricils et codes culturels chez Hamadhani elt Hariri
(Paris, 1983); James T. Monroe, The Art of Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhdni as
Picaresque Narrative (Beirut, 1983).
(37) Graber, "Pictures or Commentaries: the illustrations of the Maqdmdl or al-
IHariri", in Peter Chelkowski (ed.), Studies in Art and Literature of the Near East in
Honor of Richard Ettinghausen (Salt Lake City, 1974), p. 87. Al-Hariri himself
boasted that he personally authorized 700 copies of his Maqamat. See art. "al-
Hariri", Encyc. of Islam, New ed.
(38) For the themes in al-Hariri's Maqamat see Grabar, Illustrations,
p. 3. Monroe well demonstrates the literary richness of al-Hamadhani's work in
his Art of Badi' az-Zaman.
(39) Oleg Grabar, "Pictures", pp. 86-87, 90, 103. There seems to be some
inconsistency, however, as regards the reasons. Compare p. 90 to 103. As regards
the bourgeois nexus of the Maqamat Monroe follows Grabar: "The characters of the
Maqdmdt, significantly, function very much within a mercantile context, and it is
mercantile goals that guide their actions". See Art of Badi' az-Zaman, pp. 123-
130. One should note, however, that it is only research in the line of the
exemplary piece by Pierre A. MacKay which could establish beyond learned
speculation the actual readership and ownership of the Maqamat. See "Certificates
of Transmission on a Manuscript of the Maqdmdl of Hariri (MS. Cairo, Adab 105)",
Trans. American Philosoph. Soc., N.S. LXI, pt. IV (1971), pp. 1-81. This
particular manuscript dates from 1111, the very year in which the work was
completed.
centuries. "Even though it may be regretted that the illustra-

tions of the Maqamat do not provide us with a vaster panorama
of a visually perceived Near East ... still they do give us a
specifically defined view of the scope and of the visual vocabulary
which can clearly be assigned to the Arab bourgeoisie of the
thirteenth century".(40)
Another famous literary creation, the Thousand and One Nights,
although more often considered to be popular literature, has been
viewed also, at least in part, as a bourgeois creation. Accordingly,
it reflects the interests and preferences of an urban, mercantile,
fairly well-ordered and culturally mature society. While it is not
precisely known what categories of people patronized the story-
tellers of Baghdad and Cairo, there is no doubt, according to this
opinion, that their favourite hero was the merchant. "In the
average 1001 Nights-story, wealthy merchants and merchants sons
are what kings and princes are in the average fairy-tale. They
represent everything that is pleasant to hear about; opulence,
refinement, a secure and honoured position. They are friends to
caliphs and sultans, connoisseurs in gentle living, the very pillars of
society".(41)
Turning to the visual arts, it is Grabar's opinion that, although
too arbitrary a line has possibly been drawn between the art of the
court and the art of the city, and even though there were
throughout the first centuries of Islam constant contacts between
(40) Grabar, "Illustrated Maqamit", p. 216, and 219-21 for the theme of the
khan. For a general remark on the bourgeois Arab world as the primary subject
of the illustrations see Illustrations of the Maqdmdt, 146. To the present writer
the argument of the "bourgeois-maqamat nexus" from an artistic-thematic point
of view (Grabar, "Illustrated Maqam5t", pp. 210-15) does not seem persuasive,
and with it the presumption that because of the inherent financial investment
involved in an illustrated book the appreciation and appeal of the maqamat was
limited to the bourgeoisie. See "Illustrated Maqdmat", pp. 210-222. After all,
the only illuminated maqamat manuscript whose patron is known was copied in
1337, most likely in Egypt, for the Mamluk emir Nasir ad-Din Muhammad, son
of Tarantay. See Haldane, Mamluk Painting, p. 83; Grabar, Illustrations of
Maqdmal, p. 15. For a short note on this patron (whose year of death is
1330-was the manuscript completed posthumously?)- see al-Maqrizi, Kitab
as-Suluk li marifat duwal al-muluk, vol. II (Cairo, 1941), p. 338. The frontispiece
of this MS, now at the Bodleian Library, as the frontispiece on another MS,
presents the figure of an attended prince with a cup in his hand.
(41) Mia I. Gerhardt, The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand
and One Nights (Leiden, 1963), p. 190.
80 BOAZ SHOSHAN
the two, bourgeois art existed

own right.(42) It stands to
medieval Islamic bourgeoisie to painting, for example, was
different from that of rulers at the court. Less interested in
symbols of power, the former displayed avid concern with
reality of everyday life, manifested, for example, in pain
pottery, woodcarves, and ivory. Instead of a penchant for
timelessness, there was "a predilection for movement and action
describing the singular event of the moment".(43)
The art of ceramics, one of the most extraordinary and long-
recognized achievements of Islamic art, grew as a result of the
appearance of the mercantile middle class as art patrons. It was
created by and for the bourgeoisie. To state it somewhat
differently, the typically Islamic transformation of the common
utensil-a plate, a jug, a basin, a glass-into a work of aesthetic
quality is a development which can probably be attributed to the
rise of merchants and the like as consumers. They could raise the
humble work of the potter to a fine art, as was later the case of
glass, bronze, and other artistic branches uncontrolled or not
monopolized by the court.(44) What were the main features of
(42) Grabar, Formation, p. 186.

(43) Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, p. 54 and pl. on p. 55. One example is a
fragmentary lustre plate, probably dating from eleventh-century Egypt, with a
painting of a wrestling match. Another is of the subject of dancers covered with
zoomorphic masks which appears on different artistic media starting in the
thirteenth century. See Ettinghausen, "The Dance with Zoomorphic Masks and
Other Forms of Entertainment Seen in Islamic Art", in George Makdisi (ed.),
Studies in Honor of Hamilton A. R. Gibb (Leiden, 1965), esp. p. 220 and plats.
following p. 224. It is noteworthy, however, that these particular images have
survived on subjects which cannot be classified as bourgeois. For "reserved"
realism in the art of the maqamat see Grabar, "Illustrated Maqamat",
p. 220. Ettinghausen's thesis of bourgeois realism in painting has been challenged
recently by E. J. Grube, "Realism or Formalism: Notes on Some Fatimid Lustre-
Painted Ceramic Vessels", in Renato Traini (ed.), Studi in onore di Francesco
Gabrieli nel suo attantesimo compleanno (Rome, 1984), I, pp. 423-432; idem, "A
Drawing of Wrestlers in the Cairo Museum of Islamic Art", Quaderni di studi Arabi,
II (1985), pp. 95-96. Grube sees the wrestling scene as a royal theme, part of an
older tradition of royal iconography.
(44) Grabar, "Illustrated Maqdmdt", p. 217; Idem, Formation, p. 185. Thus
figurines of dancing girls, attendants, musicians, riders, and animals, probably from
the thirteenth century, have been excavated in Wasit, Northern Iraq, in what
appears to have been a storeroom of a pottery factory. It has been suggested that
although the small scale and fairly simple shape of the individual figurines would
not make them suitable for display purposes in themselves, "they may well have
the bourgeois art of ceramics? On the one hand it imitated the a

of the rulers in terms of both technique and themes. The develop
ment of lustre, for example, which gives a metallic shine to
object and which could turn prosaic ceramic objects into
elaborately decorated ones, can be viewed as an attempt to imitate
gold, to substitute for expensive metals not within reach of the
middle class. Indeed, several Iraqi, as well as later Iranian,
examples, have designs reminiscent of those associated with
metalwork. As regards artistic themes, hunting and feasting were
drawn from the princely repertoire yet caricaturized, a fact which
could suggest a general awareness of the princely cycle but little
practice in executing its themes.(45) There was, however, what
appears to be a distinct bourgeois contribution. It can be
detected in Iranian wares, decorated with inscriptions of either
good wishes for an anonymous owner or of aphorisms and
proverbs. According to Grabar most of the latter reflect the
morality of hard work as well as the virtues of learning and
patience ("Patience in learning is first bitter to the taste but then
its end is sweeter than honey"), and thus echoing a "bourgeois
mentality" of the patrons.(46)
There was an art of city textiles, and perhaps enough examples
are preserved from medieval Iraq and Egypt to identity various
social levels "in this most Islamic of crafts". The rise of a
bourgeoisie and the dissemination of adab, the polite educ
ideal of the secreterial sector, gave birth, among other thing
new garments and fabrics which may be characterized as m
formed part of groups that, placed in the centre of a table, would ha

beautiful display pieces. The Wasit finds do in fact include an entire o
with dancing girls and attendants." One may assume that the factory
produced its artistic objects for local patrons among the town dwelle
E. J. Grube, "Islamic Sculpture: Ceramic Figurines", Oriental Art, N.S. X
pp. 165-175.. Excavations at Nishapur (Eastern Iran) dug up "some outs
large objects as well as vast quantities of small pottery bowls with
unpretentious, though attractive, decorations... [which] can be explained
having been made for the impecunious lower middle class in the tenth and e
centuries". See Ettinghausen, "The Flowering of Seljuq Art", Metrop
Museum J., III (1970), p. 114.
(45) Grabar, Formation, pp. 182-183.
(46) Ibid., p. 184; Grabar, "Illustrated Maqdmdl", pp. 217-218; Lisa
"Plaited Kufic on Samanid Epigraphic Pottery", Ars Orientalis, VI (1966),
and pls. 1-4 following p. 132.
82 BOAZ SHOSHAN
class.(47) Here we can add to the artistic survivals textual

evidence such as chapters in al-Washsha's tenth-century "On
Elegance and Elegant People", devoted to types of clothing worn
by bourgeois contemporaries.(48)
Apart from its patronage to some particular branches of art and
literature, what was, on a more general level, the artistic role of the
medieval Islamic bourgeoisie. Grabar has suggested two
points. First, by rejecting international themes and the luxury of
princely art the art of the city expressed something of the
moralism of early Islam.(49) Second, it is possible that the
significant artistic change which occurred in the twelfth century,
that is, the tremendous spread of figural representation in all
media, as well as the animation of all parts of objects, may be
attributed to the patronage of the bourgeoisie. Such an assump-
tion derives from the fact that a large number of bronzes, and
almost all the early ones which are animated and display
figurative techniques, also bear inscriptions with the names of
merchants.(50) Finally, looking at things from the perspective of
comparative history, it is worthy of notice that the medieval
Islamic bourgeoisie, which established its "own" culture already in
the ninth or tenth centuries, much preceded in this regard its
Christian counterpart in the Latin world.(51) The latter, though
for reasons largely known and which need not be discussed here,
did very little for the arts and did not develop its own taste and
outlook at least until the fourteenth century. If it did have any
contribution it was, according to one expert opinion, "on the
lowest level of gimcrack production".(52)

(48) Art. "Libis", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (Y. K. Stillman); al-Washsha, Kildb
al-muwashsha or Az-Zarf waz-zurafd' (Leiden, 1886).
(50) Grabar, "Illustrated Maqdmdt", pp. 218, 221-222.
(51) This point is also made by Grabar, Formation, pp. 186-7.
(52) Georges Duby, Foundations of a New Humanism, 1280-1440 (Geneva, 1966),
pp. 18-19. According to Duby "only by rising above his class could the banker or
merchant become a patron". What was needed was a "gradual permeation of a
small group, sprung but emancipated from the middle class". In England it is
only in the fifteenth century that merchants started to play a role as art
patrons. See Cecil H. Clough (ed.), Profession, Vocation, and Culture in Later
Madieval England (Liverpool, 1982), pp. 4, 34, 141.
Two spheres of popular culture in medieval Islamic society are

known to some extent: religion and literature.(5a) As regards
religion, Goldziher, already one hundred years ago, made the point
that "historical evaluation must differentiate between the theore-
tical teachings of the dogmatic theologians and the popular, living
development of Islam within the circle of its believers". Pre-
Islamic customs and beliefs of the peoples conquered by Islam
were far stronger than Islam's aspiration to eradicate pagan
traditions. The place which the cult of saints occupied in Islam
was for Goldziher the best proof for the survival of popular
traditions despite the normalizing efforts of theological
theory. In due course, in different regions and periods, the visit
of saints' graves (ziyara) became a substitute for the Pilgrimage to
Mecca. It was even approved by those scholars objecting to
Pilgrimage at all costs.(") The visitation of burial places and
reliance on intercessory prayers appear well established in the
tenth century. They were, one supposes, forms of piety especially
attractive to women, because they made up for their absence at
the formal, exclusively male communal mosque prayers, and
because they constituted an approved forms of outing in an
otherwise restricted and well supervised life.(55) To take just one
out of many examples, according to an eleventh-century eyewit-
ness, at the tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron meals were
distributed to as many as five hundred pilgrims in one single
day. (56)
Popular preachers (wuaz) and story-tellers (qussas) are descri-
bed, to be sure by their opponents, as having great appeal to and
influence on the masses. Ibn al-Jawzi (1126-1200), one of their
foremost critics, nevertheless conceded that "the storytellers and
preachers were also given a place in [the] divine scheme in order to
exhort the masses. And so it is that the masses profit from them
in a way that they never profit from the great scholar".(57) What
(53) The concept of popular culture seems to me valid despite recent misgivings
as expressed, for example, in writings of Roger Chartier. See most recently his
"Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France", in
Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture, pp. 229-253.
(54) Ignaz Goldziher, "Veneration of Saints in Islam", in Muslim Studies, II
(London, 1971), esp. pp. 287-290, 297-305.
(55)Part
Cairo, Caroline
II: TheWilliams,
Mausolea","The Cult ofIIIAlid
Muqarnas, Saints
(1985), in the F.timid Monuments of
p. 40.
(56) N. Stillman, "Charity and Social Service in Medieval Islam", Societas, V
(1975), p. 111.
(57) Ibn al-Jawzi's Kildb al-qussds wa'l-mudhakkirin, ed. and trans. Merlin
84 BOAZ SHOSHAN
annoyed orthodox scholars l

techniques and tricks employe
preachers.("6) Thus we read
venth-century eloquent pre
theologian, who found in Ba
market for his wares". In his sermons there were "strange
things" and "absurdities" such as the depiction of Satan (Iblis) as
a true monotheist; he who has never learned of this fact was,
according to al-Ghazali, "a heretic". The people also heard from
that preacher that, whenever in a state of difficulty, he would see
the apparition of the Prophet Muhammad and ask his advice.(59)
Stories about Paradise were part of the stock in trade of the
popular story-tellers, who tended to emphasize elements of Islamic
eschatological belief: the "balance" (mizan) weighing one's deeds
on the Day of Judgement, or the siral, the bridge that would span
hell and over which mankind would be required to pass in order to
reach Paradise.(60) Now that the latter was a wordly, so to speak,
idea in the minds of ordinary Muslisms as early as the eighth
century we learn from a report which, though known to us from a
thirteenth-century source, is most likely authentic and is based on
earlier accounts. Accordingly, following the construction of the
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, "the people were led astray and
greatly bewitched and came to it from every place and already
made there many deceitful signs and marks appertaining to the
L. Swartz (Beirut, 1971), p. 104. See also p. 192 and n. 2. For a scholarly
assessment of the role of Muslim story-tellers see Clifford E. Bosworth, The
Medieval Islamic Underword; the BanDi Sasdn in Arabic Society and Literature
(Leiden, 1976) I, pp. 26-27: "The qdss was thus not infrequently an influential figure
in popular eyes, for whereas the dialectical subtleties of the scholastic theologians
and the legal niceties of the traditionalists and lawyers were quite above the heads
of the masses, the edifying tales of the story-tellers made some sort of religious
knowledge available to the illiterate majority." See also pp. 111-112. About the
influence exerted by popular preachers we learn, for example, from a report on a
riot caused in Baghdad in the early tenth century when the famous scholar Tabari
objected to Quranic interpretation provided by a preacher. The mob then wanted
to lynch the scholar. See Bosworth, Underworld, I, p. 27. For another example
see Goldziher, Muslim Studies, II, p. 150.
(58) Kilab al-qussads, pp. 57, 170-171, 177-196.
(59) Ibid., pp. 184-188. Ibn al-Jawzi claims that he saw the autographed copy
of al-Ghazali's book. Other preachers told false stories about Muhammad and his
marital life, blemishing the Prophet as an erring person. See ibid., pp. 183-184.
189-190. For the recital of erotic poetry see e.g. pp. 200-201.
(60) Kitab al-qussi.s, pp. 104-106.
Last Days. Thus they painted there the picture of as-Sirat

[namely, the Bridge that will extend in the Last Days from the
Mount of Olives to the Temple Mount], the gate of Paradise and
the footprint of the Messenger of God and the valley of
Ghenna. And [they] also [painted] on its gates [of the Temple
Mount] and in the holy places there. The people have been led
astray by this even until our time".(61)
"Stories of the Prophets" (qisas al-anbiya), such as the
collection composed (or edided) by al-Kisai,(62) most likely
represent the main religious nourishment of many a medieval
Muslim. The classification of Kisai's as popular religious literatu-
re may be suggested by its tendency to simplify Biblical-Quranic
legends for the education and enjoyment of the masses; and by
variations in contents and arrangements of the different extant
manuscripts of this particular work, variations that could well
indicate the existence of an oral tradition even after the first
recording of Kisai's ceuvre.(63)
(61) Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wan-nihaya (Cairo, 1932), VIII, pp. 280-28
passage is translated and discussed in A. El'ad, "Muslim Holy Places in Jeru
visitation and ritual in the Umayyad period", paper to the Third Inter. Co
"From Jihiliyya to Islam", Jerusalem, 1985, pp. 54-59. Jerusalem has a c
role in early Muslim traditions dealing with the Last Day. One of these has
Paradise will be transferred to Jerusalem and its gates opened over the tow
"Muslim Holy Places", p. 67-69.
(62) Art. "al-Kish'i, Sahib Kisas al-Anbiya', Encyc. of Islam, New Ed.
(T. Nagel). For an English translation of the Arabic (incomplete) edition see The
Tales of the Prophets of al-Kisd'i, trans. W. M. Thackston Jr. (Boston, 1978). For
the problem of dating Kisa'i see Jan Pauliny, "Kis5'i und sein Werk Kitab A'ib
al-Malakfit: Untersuchungen zur arabischen religi6sen Volksliteratur" Graecolatina
et Orientalia, VI (1974), pp. 160-75. Pauliny suggests the tenth-twelfth centuries
as most probable.
(63) Aviva Schussman, Stories of the Prophets in Muslim Tradition (in Hebrew),
Jerusalem, 1981, pp. 3-5, 22, 38, 43, 44, 45, 61, 76, 116-41 and the English
Abstract; Thackston, Tales, pp. Xiii-xiv. Haim Schwarzbaum, Biblical and
Extra-Biblical Legends in Islam Folk-Literature (Walldorf-Wessen, 1982), pp. 65-66,
has termed Kisai's work "a real chapbook" and a "folk-book". See also Jan
Pauliny, "Kisa'i's Werk Kildb Qisas al-anbiyd"', Graecolatina et Orientalia, II
(1970), pp. 191-282, esp. 194-5, 197. For the special literary character of Kisai's
work as reflecting the art of popular narration see Pauliny, "Literarischer
Charakter des Werkes Kisa'i's Kildb Qisas al-Anbiyd"', Graecolatina et Orientalia,
III (1971), p. 107. For text variations see Idem, "Zur Rolle der Qussls bei der
Entstehung und Uberlieferung der popularen Prophetenlegenden", Asian and
African Studies (Bratislava), X (1974), p. 129, n. 12; ibidem, "Kisd'i's Werk*,
pp. 200-201. 206-207. For the popular character of another work by Kisai, "The
Marvels of [Heavenly] Kingdom" See Pauliny, "'AX 'ib al-malakit", pp. 184-85,
187.
86 BOAZ SHOSHAN
The participation of medie

could be considered another
according to one scholarly op
their few and extremely arid
for the nourishment of th
ordinary Muslims were in need of a closer and immediate
awareness of the Divine to sustain them through many an
ordeal.(") Hence the influence of both newly converted Muslims
and neighboring Christians. Already in the first Islamic centuries
we learn of caliphal bans and scholarly dicta intended to prevent
the religious mixing of people of the two faiths.(85) For the eighth
century we have reports about Muslims revering a church in Lod,
Palestine, dedicated to St. George; they would come to participate
in the Saint's festival, known to them as Id Ludd.(66) Still many
centuries afterwards, the renowned theologian and polemicist Ibn
Taymiyya (1263-1328) condemned the adoration of St. George
(Arabic Jirjis) by "many Muslims" who would even claim to have
seen him, a superstition ("devil", shaylan), of course, in the
Scholar's own view.('6) Incidentally, Ibn Taymiyya, despite his
polemics (to which we shall briefly return), allows us to glimpse the
"un-Islamic" practices of ordinary Muslims such as women's
bathing under the influence of baptism in water where olive leaves
had been dipped, or the "baptizing" of children under the
influence of Epiphany.(68)
(64) Muhammad Umar Memon, Ibn Taimiya's Struggle against Popular Religion
(The Hague-Paris, 1976), pp. 1-4.
(65) An early tradition, dating to the first decade of the eighth century, forbids
Muslims to enter churches or to buy items on sale there. Traditions about Caliph
Umar praying at the Church of Mary in the Valley of Jehoshafat, as well as opposed
traditions ("Do not come to the Church of Mary or approach the two pillars for they
are idols") reflect the debate and doubts regarding the entry into and the prayer at
that church. Another tradition objects to the visiting of the Church of Ascension
on Mount Olives. See El'ad, "Muslim Holy Places", pp. 83-87, 116.
(66) Ibid., pp. 64-65, 78-80. For many examples of the participation of Muslims
in Christian festivals see Mez, Renaissance, pp. 418-429.
(67) Charles D. Matthews, "A Muslim Iconoclast (Ibn Taymiyyeh) on the
'Merits' of Jerusalem and Palestine", J. American Oriental Soc., LVI (1936), pp. 15-
16.
(68) Memon, Popular Religion, p. 221-22. For Ibn Tayimyya's "Book of the
Necessity of the Straight Path against the People of Hell" as a source for the study
of popular religion see the general discussion in Jacques Waardenburg, "Official and
Popular Religion in Islam", Social Compass, XXV (1978), pp. 316-18.
Let us turn briefly to literature. Anonymous romances (sir

pl. siyar) have been labeled by Western scholars as popular.
Arabic the romance of chivalry known as Sirat Dhat al-Himm
relating the war of the Muslims against the Byzantines until
latter part of the ninth century, a work probably written down
its extant form in the period of the Crusades, "succeeded in
pleasing a popular Muslim public by exalting the warriors of Jih
and their successes in battles and against adversaries that w
often imaginary". It has been suggested that a simple-mind
audience would accept all the stories with enthusiasm, that
narrator was adept in holding his listeners spell-bound waiting f
some climax, that a comical element, at times of a somewhat cru
sort, appears fairly frequently, and the language is incorrect
careless, but at the same time pretends to seem learned by makin
a show of rhymed prose.(69) The romance of the Yemenite pri
Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan and his adventures battling the Abyssinians i
the sixth century existed orally, so it seems, already in the tent
century; it was possibly first recorded in Mamluk Egypt (125
1500). It has been considered by its modern students as "a wo
which has sprung forth from the heart of the people, composed
it and for it" and thus providing "a faithful picture of the popu
mind in Muslim Egypt at the end of the Middle
Ages".(70) Another Arabic saga, that of the pre-Islamic poe
warrior Antara Ibn Shaddad, bacame the subject of profess
story-tellers already at an early date in the form of Siral
Antar.(71) In Persian, the so-called Alexander Romance, originally
a blending of literary and oral sources, developed into many
recensions, perhaps because it passed entirely or almost so into the
realm of folklore and was preserved from generation to generation
on the lips of professional story-tellers rather than in the pages of
(69) Art. "Dhu'l Himma", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (M. Canard).
(70) Art. "Sayf B. Dhi Yazan", Encyc. of Islam, First Ed. (R. Paret);
H. T. Norris, The Adventures of Antar (Warminster, 1980), pp. 20-22, following
Henri P6rbs, "Le roman dans la littbrature arabe des origines a la fin du moyen
Age", Annales de l'Institut d'lItudes Orientales, XVI (1958), pp. 28-30.
(71) Art. "'Antar, Sirat", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (B. Heller). For a recent
critical evaluation of European scholarship of Sirat Antar and the genre of popular
romances in general see Peter Heath, "A Critical Review of Modern Scholarship on
Sirat 'Antar Ibn Shadddd and the Popular Sira", J. Arabic Literature, XV (1984),
pp. 19-44. On this subject see also Giovanni Canova, "Gli studi sull'epica populare
Araba", Oriente Moderno, LVII (1977), pp. 211-226.
88 BOAZ SHOSHAN
books.(72) Finally, the "T

much material which derives from folk tales and popular
literature.(73)
A derivative of the literary sphere was the theatre of shadow
plays, the only extant medieval texts of which go back to the latter
part of the thirteenth century, that is Ibn Daniyal's three famous
pieces. For the last one hundred years scholars have written
about shadow theatre as a popular, in fact, the only theatrical
entertainmerit known to medieval Muslims.(74) Very recently,
however, it has been argued that this was not the case, and that
live performances, the main theme of which was the imitation of
public figures, were an important component of the theatrical
scene in medieval Islam.(7s)
(72) John A. Boyle, "The Alexander Romance in the East and West", Bull. John
Rylands Univ. Library Manchester, LX (1977-78), p. 27. For other medieval
Persian romances see William L. Hanaway, Jr., "Formal Elements in the Persian
Popular Romances", Rev. National Lit., 11(1971), pp. 139-160; idem, "Popular
Literature in Iran", in Peter J. Chelkowski (ed.), Iran: Continuity and Variety (New
York, 1971), pp. 59-75.
(73) Art. "Alf Layla wa Layla", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (E. Littmann). For
an attempt to see certain genres in the Arabian Nights reflecting the social setting
of the Mamluk period in Egypt and as an expression of popular mentality see
Heinrich Schutzinger, "Die Schelmengeschichten in Tausend und -einer Nacht als
Ausdruck der iigyptischen Volksmeinung", Rheinisches Jahrbuch fir Volkskunde,
XXI (1973), pp. 200-215. For the "Nights" as a microcosm ("to some degree") of
Islamic popular literature, see Peter Heath, "Romance as Genre in 'The Thousand
and One Nights' ", J. Arabic Lit., XVIII (1987), p. 4.
(74) For Ibn Daniyal see Encyc. of Islam, New Ed., s.v. (J. M. Landau).
According to Landau shadow plays were the "only amusement which even the
humblest could enjoy". See "Shadow-Plays in the Near East", Edoth, III
(1947-48), pp. xxIII-LXIV. For Ibn Daniyal's plays as a "type of popular dramatic
entertainment" yet "by no means a cheap, or crude type of popular entertainmentv,
see M. M. Badawi, "Medieval Arabic Drama: Ibn Daniyil", J. Arabic Lit., XIII
(1982), p. 93, 100. An Egyptian Report, though describing the situation in the
nineteenth century, tells that the "audience [of shadow plays] was composed
chiefly of children and the uneducated; the higher class sought other entertainments
and attended the shadow plays only occasionally". J. M. Landau, Studies in Arab
Theater and Cinema (Philadelphia, 1958), p. 29. See also pp. 33, 46. One should
note, however, that Kahle, another student of Arabic shadow plays, was of the
opinion that such plays as written by Ibn Daniyal could be understood only by
people of high education and intelligence. See Paul Kahle, "The Arabic
Shadow-Play in medieval Egypt", J. Pakistan Hist. Soc., 11(1954), p. 96.
(75) Shmuel Moreh, "Live Theatre in Medieval Islam", in Studies in Islamic
History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon (Jerusalem-Leiden,
1986), pp. 580-82.
II
Historians of culture have gone a long way since Jonathan

Swift's statement that "Opinions like Fashions [always descend]
from those of Quality to the Middle Sort, and thence to the Vulgar,
where at length they are dropt and vanish".('") For one thing,
they have abandoned Swift's pessimistic, so to speak, view of the
nature of the cultural process. Duby, for example, makes the
point ("a simple statement of a known fact") that, rather than
vanish, "cultural patterns of the upper classes in society tend to
become popularized, to spread and move down... to the most
deprived social groups". Furthermore, the phenomenon of cultu-
ral diffusion now appears more complex than it did to Swift in that
the flow of culture in history has by no means taken a one-
direction course.(77) I shall now try to outline that flow in the
context of medieval Islamic society.
Obviously the diffusion of cultural items and phenomena from
the elite downward comes first to mind though, save one or two
examples, this pattern of cultural flow is still hardly studied in the
case of medieval Islam.(78) Goitein proposed that the "cult of the
(76) Cited in Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London,
1978), p. 58.
(77) Georges Duby, "The Diffusion of Cultural Patterns in Feudal Society", Past
& Present, XXXIX (1968), p. 3-10, rep. in Duby, The Chivalrous Society (London,
1977), pp. 171-77; Burke, Popular Culture, pp. 58-60. Burke has recently sugges-
ted to replace the Gramscian view of cultural "hegemony" with the idea of cultural
"negotiation". See "From Pioneers to Settlers: Recent Studies of the Hlistory of
Popular Culture", Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXV (1983), pp. 181-
87, esp. 186-87. Already Mikhail Bakhtin in his work on Rabelais written in 1940
(English trans. Rabelais and His World [Cambridge, Mass., 1968], introduced the
notion of "circularity" between the cultures of the dominant and subordinate
classes in preindustrial Europe. For a brief appreciation of Bakhtin's contribution
see Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century
Miller (Baltimore, 1980), p. xii. For the interaction between learned and popular
cultures in medieval Christendom see Jacques Le Goff, "The Learned and Popular
Dimensions of Journeys in the Otherworld in the Middle Ages", in Kaplan (ed.),
Understanding Popular Culture, p. 29.
(78) A pioneering, though crude, conceptualization of this process in the
medieval Islamic context is Gustave E. von Grunebaum's. Accordingy there was
'vertical exchange of culture... between dominant and dominated groups", as a
result of which such groups may, for example, "interchange the mores of the
dominated for the religious notions of the dominant, forms of organization of the
90 BOAZ SHOSHAN
ephebes" was originally a priv

example filtered down and
groups in the Islamic comm
discussed the history of a sin
headcover of caliphs, and late
scale.("s) There is certainly
pattern of cultural diffusio
What sort of mental stand a
high to low is difficult to kn
few traces. In contrast we a
attitude of representatives
refer to both as high culture - toward their culturally
"inferiors". The issue appears rather complicated since there was
not just one sort of treatment of popular culture. In fact, one can
observe a number of approaches.
One obvious approach entailed criticism, even an outright
rejection of popular culture, perhaps not as such concept but of its
various manifestations. This approach is presumably quite well
known so some brief remarks may suffice. One need only mention
dominated for techniques of the dominant... This interchange is directed by the

existential and political needs of the dominant group as they relate to the
existential and survival needs of the dominated". See "An analysis of Islamic
civilization and cultural anthropology", in Colloque sur la sociologie musulmane,
Actes (Brusselles, 1961), pp. 67-68.
(79) S. D. Goitein, "The Sexual Mores of the Common People", in Afaf Lutfi al-
Sayyid-Marsot (ed.), Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam (Malibu, 1979), pp. 47-
48. It is doubtful, however, that the exact chronology of the process could be
reconstructed. What we have is the situation at the final stage, namely, the tenth
or eleventh century, as homosexual relations were prevalent in all social
levels. For examples among the ruling elite see Mez Renaissance, pp. 358-359;
J. C. Buirgel,"Love, Lust and Longing: Eroticism in Early Islam as Reflected in
Literary Sources", in Society and the Sexes, p. 88. For passion for boys as a special
"vice" of qadis see Mez, Renaissance, p. 359; Bosworth, Underworld, I, pp. 83, 84
n. 8: Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, p. 114. For Sufis see Bosworth, Underworld, I,
pp. 114 and n. 56, 115. For beggars and "underworld" types see ibid., pp. 38-39,
92, 102.
(80) Boaz Shoshan, "On Costume and Social History in Medieval Islam", Asian
and African Studies (Haifa), XXII (1988) pp. 35-51.
(81) Manutcher Kalantari, "Le livre des rois et les peintures des maisons de the",
Objets et mondes, XI (1971), pp. 141-158, is an interesting example of artistic
popularization of Shahnama themes as they appear on murals of coffehouses in
early twentieth-century Iran.
a few names associated with it, most prominent among th

Taymiyya. This towering theologian of medieval Islam (1
1328) wrote a special work en titled "The Necessity of the Str
Path against the People of Hell", in which he criticized the
practices of those "common people... who do not know the
essence of Islam" and who are influenced by Christianity. Ibn
Taymiyya warned "against that into which we have seen many
people fall", namely, the imitation of Christian fetivals. His
book also has a long section condemning various popular customs
such as the celebration of the Prophet's birthday
(mawlid). "Such practices are horrendous to a believer-a
believer whose heart is not as yet dead but rather knows the
reputable and shuns what is not reputable."(s8) Another of Ibn
Taymiyya's treatises, the short "Visitation of Graves", has a
detailed refutation of the ceremonies and rituals evolving around
the Prophet's grave, as well as the graves of lesser personages. It
was undoubtedly directed against the custom of ziyara prevalent in
his own days.(83) Tomb-worship, intercession, an exaggerated
belief in the spiritual powers of local saints, or any other
manifestation of popular belief had, according to Ibn Taymiyya,
be wiped out if faith were to be saved and God's religion entirely
devoted to him. In the eradication of innovations (bida), in
redeeming faith from the popular invasion of heretical novelties,
and in restoring it to its congenital simplicity saw Ibn Taymiyya
his calling.(84) One should note in passing that there was also a
practical aspect to the Scholar's praeching for pure Islam. It is
reported that on one occasion he headed a group of his followers
and some masons to remove a rock in Damascus which had become
a site of pilgrimage, as it supposedly carried the Prophet's
footprint. The action, we are told, was resented by "the people of
(82) Memon, Popular Religion, pp. 210-11, 221-22. For the attack on popula
festivals and their description see pp. 241-331. Memon's is a translation of most o
the Arabic original text and contains a valuable introduction to Ibn Taymiyya's
thought as regards some critical issues.
(83) The text of a Yale University MS. was first published by Charle
D. Matthews, "A Muslim Iconoclast (Ibn Taymiyyeh) on the 'Merits of Jerusalem
and Palestine' ", J. American Oriental Soc. LVI (1936), pp. 1-21. This treatise
now available as Kitab az-ziyara, ed. Sayf ad-Din al-Katib (Beirut, 1980).
(84) Memon, Popular Religion, pp. 77-78, 86.
92 BOAZ SHOSHAN
Damascus".(85) On another
Cairo, Ibn Taymiyya could n
backgammon board when h
outside a blacksmith's shop.
From Ibn Taymiyya the way
tracts, which started to appea
against unsanctioned innovati
popular culture. Two exam
Abdari, a resident of Cairo
the visitation of graves, va
behavior of Muslim women
criticizes in his al-Luma fi'l h
the early fourteenth century
and Christians and the cele
as Christmas. He also condemns the cult of the dead, and
women's repugnant habits of singing and dancing while making
the Pilgrimage to Mecca.(88)
Finally on this approach we can single out tracts against popular
preachers and critiques of the commoners' literature.(89) Ibn al-
Jawzi and his criticism of the "lies" of the praechers has been
already mentioned. The Syrian scholar Taj ad-Din as-Subki (died
1370) advised the copyists that their duty was not to copy "one of
(85) Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wan-nihaya, vol., XVI, p. 34: Ibn Iyas, Badai az-
zuhur fi mada al-ayyam wash-shuhur (Wiesbaden ed.), vol. I, p. 417 (sub anno
702 H.): Hasan Qasim Murad, "Ibn Tavmiva on Trial: a narrative account of his
mihan", Islamic Studies, XVIII (1979), p. 5. Murad compares the reports of two
chroniclers, one probably reflecting a (scholarly) approval of the act, another the
public, more hostile, reaction.
(86) Donald P. Little, "Did Ibn Taymiyya have a screw loose", Studia Islamica,
XLI (1975), p. 107.
(87) Al-Madkhal (Cairo, 1929), vol. I, pp. 255-313. See on him art. "Ibn al-
Hidjdj", Encyc. of Islam New Ed. (J.-C. Vadet), p. 779; art. "Al-'Abdari". Encyc. of
Islam, First Ed. (Brockelmann); Barbara Langner, Untersuchungen zur historischen
Volkskunde Agyplens nach Mamlukischen Quellen (Berlin, 1983), pp. 20-62.
(88) Ed. Subhi Labib, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1986). I am indebted to Professor
U. Haarmann of Freiburg for drawing my attention to this work. For a short
summary of it see Labib, "The Problem of the Bida' in the Light of an Arabic
Manuscript of the 14th Century", J. Econ. and Soc. Hist. of the Orient, VII (1964),
pp. 191-96.
(89) Goldziher, Muslim Studies. II. pp. 153-54. Bosworth, Underworld. I.
p. 28. For a sketchy survey see Ibn al-Jaw:i's Kitlb al-qusss,. pp. 55-61. Swartz
corrects some errors in Johs Pedersen. "The Criticism of the Islamic Preacher". Die
Welt des Islams, N.S.. 11 (1953). pp. 215-31.
those deceptive (mudilla) books... by which God does not offer an

useful thing such as Sirat Antar and other books on fabrica
topics..." Subki warned also book dealers not to sell "falsified
books" (al-kutub al-makdhuba) of the sort of Siral Antar.(9o) H
advice is echoed about one hundred years later by the North
African jurist al-Wansharisi who reports in his book of responsa
a scholar who had been asked for his opinion about books such
Antar and Sirat Dhelhemma. Obviously he had banned their
reading. (91)
Now it is important to state that members of high culture
medieval Islam were not unanimous in criticizing popular
culture. One example of disagreement is evident during the
famous trial in 1326 of the aforementioned Ibn Taymiyya. The
council of his judges had been marked, among other things, by
hostility to any suggestion as to the unorthodoxy of graves'
visiation.(92) In fact, three contemporaneous scholars in Syria
and Egypt wrote treatises against the famous theologian's view on
the subject of ziyara.(93) When in the 1320's one of his followers
spoke in Jerusalem against the latter custom, local scholars made a
report to the sultan. The result was that the man, a scholar in his
own right, was punished.(94) Al-Asqalani (1372-1449), one of the
greatest scholars of the late medieval period, expressed a lenient
attitude toward the cult of the dead and forbade only extreme
veneration and the use of tombs as a pointer towards Mecca
(qibla).(95) His contemporary as-Suyuti unequivocally voiced his
(90) Muid an-niam wa mubid an-niqam, ed. David W. Myhrman (London, 1908),
pp. 186, 205.
(91) P6r6s, "Le roman", p. 33 and the references cited there.
(92) Little, "Screw Loose", pp. 97, 98: Idem, "The Historical and Ilistoriogra-
phical Significance of the Detention of Ibn Taymiyya", Int. J. Middle East Stud.,
IV (1973), p. 312. Cf. also Memon, Popular Religion, pp. 49-50. For a detailed
account of Ibn Taymiyya's trial following the discovery in 1326 of his responsum
(fatwa) rejecting visitations see Murad, "Ibn Taymiya on Trial", pp. 23-25.
(93) The chief Malikite qadi of Cairo wh3 brought Ibn Taymiyya to trial wrote a
rebutal on the question of visitation. See Murad, "Ibn Taymiya on Trial",
p. 25. Taqi ad-Din as-Subki (died 1355) wrote Shifa as-saqam fi ziyarat khayr al-
andm. subtitled "the waging of war against those who reject the ziyara" (Shann al-
ghara ala man ankara safar az-ziyara). The book was edited in IIlaydarabad,
1897. For a third scholar see Ibn Taghri Birdi, An-Nujum az-zahira fi muluk misr
wa'l-qahira (Cairo ed. 1929-1972), vol. IX, p. 270.
(94) Murad. "Ibn Taymiya on Trial", p. 24.
(95) Art. "Masdjid",. Encyc. of Islam, First Ed., sec. B/4 (Johs. Pedersen).
94 BOAZ SHOSHAN
approval of the celebration of the Prophet's birthday

(mawlid).(") Concerning another popular custom, that of "going
round the country", singing with musical instruments before
setting out for the pilgrimage to Mecca, the renowned theologian
al-Ghazali (died 1111) considered it permissible, since the songs
chanted described the holy places associated with the
Pilgrimage. Also, according to al-Ghazali, the effect of the songs
was "to arouse a longing for pilgrimage to the House of God Most
High, and to make to blaze up the fire of longing if it be already
present there and to stir it and procure it if it be not already
present. And since pilgrimage is an act of piety and longing to
perform it is praiseworthy, the arousing of that longing by every
means that can arouse it is praiseworthy".(97)
Next I wish to examine another mode of relationship between

high and popular culture which is marked by some
complexity. For on the one hand it entails conscious rejection of
the popular; yet on the other and there is borrowing, most likely
without awareness, out of it. Let us consider in some detail one
particular case.
Ninth and tenth-century muslim chroniclers tell us laconically
about Abdallah Abu Muhammad (there are other versions of the
name), better known as Battal, the "hero" or the "brave", who
fought the Byzantines. What we have in their accounts are brief
references to two expeditions which he led, and a note about his
death in 740 in the course of a defeat suffered by Umayyad armies
at the hands of Emperor Leo III and his son Constantine.(9s)
Now such a succinct treatment may reflect either the relative
(96) Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti, Husn al-maqasid fi amal al-mawlid, Berlin MS.
Suyuti approved of the mawlid as a commendable innovation (bida hasana) and
considered the recitation of Quran and the stories of the Prophet-often in verse or
in a combination of prose and poetry-the core of the celebration, and the
processions, feasting, and fairs, mere accessories. See G. E. von Grunebaum,
Muhammadan Festivals (London, 1951), p. 76; Memon, popular Religion, p. 5; art.
"Mawlid", Encyc. of Islam, First Ed. (H. Fuchs).
(97) Trans. D. B. Macdonald, J. Royal Asiatic Soc., 1901, pp. 219-21. Ghazali
was opposed, however, to the inclusion of "pipes and stringed instruments which
belong to the badges of evil people".
(98) Art. "Battil", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. (M. Canard).
insignificance of Battal, at least at the time of the writing,

else the paucity of material about him. Be that as it may, th
are two interrelated phenomena which should draw our attent
as we proceed to somewhat later sources. One is that Battal'
military exploits started to be celebrated in popular accounts
anecdotes; the other is that the latter were now incorporated int
standard reports about the Arab-Byzantine wars. Thus repr
ducing a legend which could have developed shortly after th
mid-ninth century. Al-Masudi (died 956) presented Battal as o
of the illustrious Muslims whose portrait the Byzantines hung
their churches. Another popular report appears in the Persi
recasting in the year 963 of Tabari's famous chronicle, and d
with a well known expedition to capture Constantinople
717. In the course of it Arab troops besieged the Byzantin
capital and, according to the account, Battal, who is praised
the bravest among the Muslims, was assigned to hold one ga
of the city open while the caliph's son entered. Battal was furthe
instructed to avenge the prince's death had he not returned.
a third, anonymous source of the eleventh or twelfth century o
finds, in addition to the abovementioned anecdotes, an account
of a duel between Battal and a Byzantine soldier who had earlier
overpowered a number of Muslim fighters. Battal, needless to
mention, managed to kill his foe.
It is in Arabic chronicles written in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries that we first find an assemblage of popular stories which,
as we shall presently see, suggest the flourishing of an elaborate
Romance of Battal by the twelfth century at the latest. The
accounts are based on the (alleged) report of one Abu Marwan
Abdallah ibn Yahya of Antioch, who supposedly had fought at the
side of Battel and had heard the stories from the hero
himself. Accordingly, Battal, the commander of th
Northern Iraq and Syria, had appeared one night in
village where he heard (and this indeed sounds very
mother threatening her crying child to hand him to
Warrior had he not stopped crying. Sure enough B
in. In another story told by the same Abu Marwan s
led by his horse to a convent where he is given asylum
treatment. He then escapes the investigation of a B
general thanks to the abbess. Battal follows the Chris
kills him, then returns to the convent where he cap
nuns and marries the abbess who bears children to him. A third
story deals with Battal's death scene, a result of an error
96 BOAZ SHOSHAN
committed by the Muslim soldiers who had disclosed to the

Byzantines Battal's identity. As the Arab hero lies seriously
wounded, he is attended by Emperor Leo who intimately addresses
him by his "nickname" (kunya) Abu Yahya and agrees to honor
him with a Muslim funeral.(99)
That the case here is the incorporation of popular material into
well respected chronicles is obvious from the sheer content. But
the argument can be further sustained as we learn about the actual
existence of popular works whose subject is Battal. One testimo-
ny to this effect is a reference to an Egyptian writer who is
reported to have mentioned the "Accounts of Battal" (ahadith al-
Battal) together with "Thousand and one Nights" as literature
known in his days, that is the 1160s or 1170s.(100) Precisely in
those years another man who happened to be a Jew-turned-Muslim
took pleasure in reading popular romances and the "large diwans"
(and indeed were they large) of Dhelhemma wa'l Battal, Akhbar
Antara (or Antar), and "The Romance of Alexander the Great"
(Akhbar al-Iskandar Dhi al-Qarnayn).(101) What exactly was the
"Romance of Battal", what material did it contain is impossible to
say since a copy has unfortunately not survived.(102) Yet is it too
speculative to suggest that the abovementioned anecdotes preser-
ved in the historical works had originally been part of the popular
romance? Of course, the medieval chroniclers who reproduced
them insisted t at theirs was "factual" material, unlike the
popular "lies". Ibn Kathir (died 1373) stated that Sirat Dhelhem-
(99) Ibid., and the sources cited there.

(100) D. B. Macdonald, "The Earlier History of the Arabian Nights", J. Royal
Asiatic. Soc., 1924, pp. 379-381.
(101) Art. "Dhu'l Himma", Encyc. of Islam. New Ed. (M. Canard). For Sirat
Antar and the "Romance of Alexander" see p. 87 above.
(102) What we do have, however, are two printed editions of "The Romance of
the Woman of Noble Purpose" (Sirat al-amira dhat al-himma or, in a vulgarized
version: dhelhemma). It is noteworthy that in the extant version, probably
completed at the time of the Crusades and dealing mainly with the war against the
Byzantines until the middle of the ninth century, but also reflecting later events.
Battal has been transplanted into the period of Harun ar-Rashid (r. 786-809) and
his successors. Thus it is apparent that at least one popular version of the Battal
story so digressed from the original historical facts as to totally confuse the
historical periods and the personalities involved. Incidentally. similar is the case
of the Turkish version of the story which reached crystalization at some point prior
to the thirteenthEncyc.
"Danishmendids". century. See art.
of Islam. New"Batt.l". section by I. Melikoff. and art.
Ed. (I. Melikoff).
ma wa'l Ballal was popular among the public, the ignorant and th
unwise, attacked it vehemently as "falsehood, fabrication, s
invention (wad barid), ignorance, detestable nonsense (takhab
fahish)", and compared it to other "falsified" romances.(103)
contemporary Dhahabi (died 1347) blamed the "ignorant stor
tellers" for inventing lies about Battal and "fabricating inappr
priate and unfounded stories (khurafal) about him". He blam
those who compose "a long biography" (sira kabira) and "tho
who do not shy away from lies" and add matrial to it.(1o4)
The importance of popular literature, one may note in conc
sion of this case, goes occasionally beyond its own realm. Thus
their brief reference to Battal the editors of the first edition of the
Encyclopaedia of Islam reported in 1913 that Battal is a Turkish
national hero whose presumed grave south of Eski-Sheher
(Drylaeum) in Western Anatolia is held in great reverence. At the
tomb of Battal, allegedly built by the mother of Ala' ad-Din
Kaygubad and mentioned by an Arab traveller as early as the
second half of the twelfth century(105)-incidentally and perhaps
also significantly, the assumed period in which the popular
literature about Battal was flourishing--there is a "monastery"
(tekke) of the Bektashi dervishes. The name of Battal still lives
on in numerous Anatolian legends and in particular in the
hagiographical stories of the 'Alawi and Bektashi orders who have
adopted Battal as one of their heroes.(06)
Marc Bloch has stated that the "influence of popular images on

the religion of the learned is a phenomenon well known to all
historians of medieval Christianity".('07) This should be extended
also to the study of Islam. In fact, already Goldziher, some
(103) Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wan-nihaya, vol. IX, p. 334.

(104) Dhahabi. al-lbar bi khabar man ghabar (Kuwait, 1960-63), I, pp. 140, 154;
Idem. DI)uwal al-islam (2nd ed. Haydcrabad 1364/1944), vol. I, p. 55.
(105) Eva Baer, "A Brass Vessel from the Tomb of Sayyid Battwl Ghdzi",
Artibus Asiae. XXXIX (1977). p. 300 n. 4. For Kayqubad, the most distinguished
of the Seljuq sultans of Anatolia (r. 1220-1237) see art. "Kaykubad", Encyc. of
Islam. New Ed. (Cl. Cahen).
(106) Art. "Battal". Encyc. of Islam. First Ed.
(107) Quoted in Jacques Le Goff. Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages
(Chicago. 1980). p. 153.
98 BOAZ SHOSHAN
hundred years ago, had obs

inception... ["Official Islam
upon the reinterpretation
religious elements". For Go
elements, the veneration of
Now if we assume that sain
practice of the commoners, t
spread upwards and finally
learned and the "ignorant"
point. In 1086 the Seljuq su
al-Mulk visited the tomb o
saints.('19) The fifteenth-ce
tells in his book on Jerusalem and Hebron about the
ascetic Muhammad al-Qurashi (died 1202), originally
whose grave became the site of pilgrimage, especially
renovated in the fourteenth century. It was believed that
requests made by the grave would be answered. Ulaymi himself
confessed that his own experience confirmed this (popular)
belief.(110) That the cult of saints was a religious practice of
possible political consequences we learn from the support it was
given by the Seljuqs, who recognized it as an invaluable asset in
their attempt to consolidate the camp of the Sunni Muslims in the
face of the Fatimid regime in Egypt. A later chronicler
dramatically described the abortive attempt made by the above-
mentioned Nizam al-Mulk to obtain in Cairo the body of the
famous scholar Shafli (died 820) for reburial in Baghdad.(111)
Earlier in discussing the "Romance of Battal" I have presented
a case of conscious rejection/unconscious borrowing as regards
popular culture. An Example of consciously adopting out of the
popular comes from the realm of ideas and rituals. It is the royal
embracing of the futuwwa, a medieval Islamic ideal which many
modern scholars have rendered as "Islamic chivalry". Until the
end of the twelfth century the fuluwwa was associated with groups
of the lower social strata such as the Baghdadi "sans-culotte"
(108) Muslim Studies, II, p. 298.

(109) G. Le Strange, Bagdad during the Abbasid Caliphate (Oxford, 1924), pp. 98-
100.
(110) Kitab al-uns al-jalil bi tarikh al-Quds wa'l Khalil (Cairo, 1866), pp. 514-516.
(111) Gustave von Grunebaum, "Islamic Studies and Cultural Research" in G.
E. von Grunebaum (ed.), Studies in Islamic Cultural History (=The American
Anthropologist no. 56), 1954, p. 15.
(ayyarun).(112) What can be reconstructed of the cultural content

of the early, low-class fuluwwa, especially with regards to the
period 1050-1200, is some of its moral norms and special
rites. These are reported in historical sketches of the ayyarun, as
well as in treatment of the "futuwwa-people" (fityan) by their
opponents. Thus one medieval scholar informs about their
prudent behavior towards women and their straightforward
marital life. ("The. fata does not fornicate, does not lie, respects
women, does not unveil their faces."(113) "Anti-capitalistic"
tendencies are suggested in some reports of their activities.(114) It
appears that the rite of initiation, mainly consisting of the drinking
of a cup of salt water, probably as a symbol of comradeship or
perseverence, and the bestowing of a special futuwwa dress, were
among the rites which evolved among the men of futuwwa in its
popular phase.(11s)
By the latter part of the eleventh century the futuwwa of the
ayyarun drew the interest of the culturally cultivated. A Persian
prince who wrote in 1082 the Qabus nama, a book in the genre of
Fuirstenspiegel, considered the path of the futuwwa (Persian
jayanmardi or juyanmardi) as a legitimate career for his
son.(116) Around the same time a treatise containing a discussion
of futuwwa, one of the earliest to have survived, was dedicated to
(112) For this association see Mustafa Jawwad in his introduction to Ibn al-
Mimar, Kitab al-fuluwwa (Baghdad, 1958), p. 34 ff.; art. "'Ayy5r", Encyc. of Islam,
New Ed. (F. Taeschner); art. "Futuwwa", ibid. (Cl. Cahen); Cl. Cahen, "Mouve-
ments populaires et autonomisme urbain dans l'Asie musulmane du moyen Age",
Arabica, VI (1959), p. 49 and n. 2: Simha Sabari, Mouvements populaires a Baghdad
a lI'poque abbaside, Ixe-xIe siicles (Paris, 1981), p. 91. For the low social status of
the ayyarun see e.g. Cahen, "Mouvements", p. 47.
(113) Ibn al-Jawzi, Tablis iblis, 2nd ed. (Cairo, 1347/1928), p. 392. (The author
identifies "Futuwwa people" [fityan] with ayyarun); Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil, vol. IX,
p. 439: Ibn al-Mimar, p. 37; Sabari, Mouvements, pp. 91, 95.
(114) E.g. Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil, vol. XI, p. 61: Sabari, Mouvements, pp. 82, 86
and an image of "Robin Hoods" on p. 95.
(115) The rite of "passing the cup" is mentioned many times. See e.g. Ibn al-
Athir, al-Kamil, vol. XI, p. 63: Jawwad, intr. to Kitab al-fuluwwa, pp. 57-58: Franz
Taeschner, "Das Futuwwa-Rittertum des islamischen Mittelalters" in Richard
Hartmann and Helmuth Scheel (ed.), Beitrdge zur Arabistik, Semitistik und
Islamwissenschaft (Leipzig, 1944), pp. 349-50. For the "trousers of futuwwa" in the
1130s see Robert Mason, Two Statesmen of Medieval Islam (The Hague, 1972),
pp. 129-30.
(116) The Nasihat Nama known as Qabus Nama, ed. and trans. Reuben Levy
(London, 1951), p. 139 ff. English trans., p. 239 ff. Levy renders the Persian term as
"knight-errantry".
100 BOAZ SHOSHAN
the famous Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk (fl. 1066-

1092).(117) Finally, about one hundred years later, in the yea
1204, the Abbasid caliph an-Nasir in Baghdad took some
unequivocal steps to embrace the futuwwa as part of his attempt to
revive the long-declining caliphate, it seems. His reform of the
concept and of its institutional manifestation has been carefully
studied and need not detain us here.(118) What is of our
immediate interest, however, is that an-Nasir, together with his
patronage of the ideal, also borrowed the popular rites of the
ayyarun/filyan: bestowing the special dress and drinking the
cup. (119)
Another example of borrowing from the popular, perhaps
somewhat questionable in the light of recent research, comes from
the realm of the arts, and entails the incorporation of everyday-life
subjects and such as usually considered as part of popular
entertainment into works of royal art. Scenes of wrestlers, mock
duels, trained animals, and bear and lion tamers appear, for
example, on a silver-inlaid basin made in Mosul around 1238 for
the Ayyubid Sultan al-Adil II. The artistic portrayal of such
themes on luxury goods -silver-inlaid bronzes, lustre-or poly-
chrome painted pottery and fine wood carvings--, indicate their
decided appeal to the wealthy elite, even to the palace. Thus
popular themes become artistically integrated into royal presenta-
tions.(120)
(117) The work titled Mirat al-muruwwat ("Speculum of Virtues") was written
by one Ibn Jadawayh. See Franz Taeschner. "Der Anteil des Sufismus an der
Formung des Futuwwa". Der Islam. XXIV (1937), pp. 48-52: Idem, "Das
Futuwwa-Kapitel in Ibn Gadawaihi's Mirat al-Muruwwat", Documenta Islamic
Inedita (Berlin. 1952), pp. 107-19.
(118) Research on this subject is summarized in Angelika Hartmann, an-Ndsir li
DFn Allah (1180-1225): Politik. Religion, Kultur in der spdten 'Abbasidenzeit (Berlin
and New York, 1975), pp. 106-107.
(119) For the dress and cup see Ibn al-Mimar. Kitab al-futuwwa, pp. 56 and
n. 95, 67-70. 71. 251-255: Taeschner. "Das Futuwwa-Rittertum". pp. 368-
369. According to Ibn Khaldun an-Nasir also was fond of shooting the crossbow
and the carrier pigeon sport and he put on the futuwwa trousers following a
custom of the ayyarun of Baghdad. See Kitab al-ibar. Bulaq. 1284/1867, Vol.
III, p. 535, trans. in Gerhard Salinger. "Was the Futuwwa an Oriental Form of
Chivalry?", Proc. American Philosoph. Soc.. XIV (1950). p. 491. See also the
general remarks in Franz Taeschner. "Das islamische Rittertum im Mittelalter". in
Hans H. Schaeder (ed.). Der Orient in Deutscher Forschung (Leipzig. 1944). p. 102:
art. "Futuwwa". Encyc. of Islam. New Ed.
(120) Ettinghausen. "Dance with Zoomorphic Masks". pp. 222. 224. and
pl. XIX. For a discussion of al-Adil's basin see D. S. Rice. "Inlaid Brasses from
In the ninth century there appears, as reflected in literary

themes, an interest in low life and in the vulgar, even criminal
elements, of the medieval Islamic population. Jahiz (died 868 or
869), this towering figure of Arabic belles lettres, is characteristi-
cally the pioneer of this trend in writing works such as "Epistle
describing the common people" or "Book on the characteristics of
mobsters."(121) His contemporary Abu'l Anbas Muhammad (828-
888) of Saymara, near Basra, a boon-companion of caliphs of his
time, wrote a work titled "Book on the defects of the common
people and stories of the lower orders and illiterate
classes."(122) A certain Abu Aqqal wrote "Book on the Manners
of the Commoners". The tenth-century al-Masudi stated that
had he not been afraid of rambling too much he would retail a
length remarkable stories about the lower orders, their way of life
morals, their various subdivisions, etc.(123)
There is not only the interest and description of low social
groups but also the inclusion of their slang, as well as the depiction
of low-class figures as heros of literary works. As for the firs
aspect, the "notorious" poet known as Ibn al-Hajjaj (941 or 942
1001), a "supreme pornographer" of his age and arch-exponent o
sukhf, the literary genre of obscenity, used in his poetry the
language of the dregs of his urban society, the slums of
Baghdad. It is said of him that his words were interwined with
the language of the prisoners, with that of beggars and with that of
"rowdies and bullies" (ahl ash-shalara).(124) Abu'l Mutahhar al-
the Workshop of Ahmad al-Dhaki al-Mawsili", Ars Orienialis, II (1957),

p. 308. For criticism of Ettinghausen's interpretation see n. 43 above.
(121) Bosworth, Underworld, 1, pp. 30, 32-34. The reasons for Jahiz's special
attitude toward the lower classes are suggested in Sadan, "Kings and Craftsmen",
Studia Islamica. LXII (1985), pp. 92-93.
(122) Bosworth, Underworld, 1, pp. 30-31. Bosworth raises the possibility that
as-Saymari copied from Jahiz. For this author see also Charles Pellat, "Un
curieux amuseur Bajdadien: Abu 1-Anbas as-Saymari", Wissenschaflliche Zeitschrifl,
Martin-Luther Universildt, Halle-Wittenberg. XVII (1968), pp. 133-137, where a full
list of his works is given: art. "Abu'l Anbas al-Saymari", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed.,
Supplement (Ch. Pellat).
(123) Bosworth. Underworld. I, p. 32.
(124) Ibid.. p. 64 and n. 49: Encyc. of Islam. s.v.
102 BOAZ SHOSHAN
Azdi in the tenth or elevent

Hikayal Abi'l Qasim the slang a
raff, incidentally, a fact that m
for the modern reader.(125) Th
1345, wrote a book on humour is slightly flavoured with
colloquials.(l12) Safi ad-Din al-Hilli (died ca. 1349), probably the
most "neo-classical" Iraqi poet in the later medieval period,
demonstrates a marked liking for popular poetry and the use of
slang words.(127) As for the depiction of low-class figures in works
of literature, the Maqamal takes the "heroes of its philologically
erudite, somewhat contrived but always scintillating scenes from a
class of Gliicksriltter that operates at just one remove from the
underworld".(128)
Works on the low groups in medieval Islamic society not only
interested their producers but also found patrons at the highest
echelons. Thus the renowned tenth-century vizier Ibn Abbad was
patron of the Iraqi poet Abu'l Hasan al-Ukbari, "the poet of the
beggars, their elegant exponent and the wittiest among them",
and, the vizier and his literary circle dlighted in al-Ukbari's stock
of lore about the "underworld" figures known as the Banu
Sasan.(129) The Sahib, as the vizier was known, "...had by heart
to a remarkable degree the beggars' slang (munakat Bani Sasan),
and Abu Dulaf's [a poet in his circle] prodigious knowledge of this
jargon used to afford him great pleasure. The two of them used
to bandy this slang about between themselves, and use expressions
which no-one else present could comprehend".(130)
How can the interest in the culture of the lower orders, as
manifested in literary works, how can the "discovery of the
people" in medieval Islam be explained?(131) Bosworth, speaking
of the ninth and tenth centuries, has opined that the interest "was
undoubtedly related to the progress of urbanisation and sophistica-
(125) Bosworth, Underworld, I, p. 66.

(126) Sadan, "Kigs and Craftsmen I", pp. 31, 34-36.
(127) Art. '"Arabiyya", Encyc. of Islam, New Ed. Vol. I, p. 595b (H. A. R. Gibb).
(128) G. E. von Grunebaum, "Aspects of Arabic Urban Literature", Al-Andalus,
XX (1955), p. 276; Monroe, Art of Badi' az-Zaman, esp. Ch. 8.
(129) Bosworth, Underworld, I, pp. 63, 67-68, 74-75.
(130) Ibid., p. 76.
(131) Peter Burke, "Peoples History or Total History"; "The 'Discovery' of
Popular Culture", in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People's History and Social Theory
(London, 1981), pp. 4-9, 216-221.
tion of life" and that economic prosperity made medieval Muslims

"more aware of the gaps between social classes".(s32) One finds
difficult to accept the first part as it is too vague an
explanation. As for the second part, what is missing is a
discussion of the process by which an initially widening socio-
economic gap and dichotomy, perhaps aversion in terms of
culture,('15) are turned into an attitude of curiosity. My own
speculation, for there is certainly no direct answer in our sources,
leads to two different suggestions. One is that the interest in
popular culture, albeit highly prejudiced and with its idiosyncra-
sies, was a product of intellectual curiosity displayed by a
minority.(1s4) In this respect the interest of some Muslim writers
in the common people within their own society could be compared
to the interest of medieval Muslim geographers in peoples outside
the world of Islam.(135) But this is perhaps not the whole story
and one could suggest, I think, that "aristocratic" patronage of
literature dealing with the common and vulgar in medieval Islam
was somewhat similar in its origin to the patronage provided or, at
least, the tolerance displayed, for example, by members of the
early modern English elite to expressions of popular culture,
despite the growing distance in socio-economic and educational
terms. Folk motifs were actually included, at least to a limited
extent, in literary and other cultural products designed for elite
audience. This is evidenced, for example, in the case of chariva-
ris, those noisy, ritualistic demonstrations of popular justice,
intended to mock and humiliate wrongdoers in the
community. For English aristocrats in the sixteenth or seven
teenth century, so it has been suggested, the charivari fulfille
some needs (cultural? social? psychological?) which they share
with the commoners.(136)
(132) Bosworth, Underworld, I, pp. 30, 65.

(133) Burke, Popular Culture, pp. 233-281 speaks of the cultural withdrawal
the upper classes and the separation of the upper-class/lower-class cultures in t
course of the period 1500-1800 which is economically marked by the commerc
revolution.
(134) For the same in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe see Burke,
Popular Culture, pp. 281-286.
(135) On this subject see Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New
York, 1982), esp. Ch. V. For one particular case see Ahmad M. H. Shboul, Al-
Masudi & His World: A Muslim Humanist and his Interest in non-Muslims (London,
1979), e.g. pp. xv-xvi and Chs. V, VI, and pp. 301-304.
(136) Martin Ingram, "Ridings, Rough Music and the 'Reform of Popular
104 BOAZ SHOSHAN
Now one could speculate that

just as well, reading works on th
even enacting their plot, was means of transcending moral
constraints, a way to some kind of catharsis. One notices that
quite a number of literary pieces about the common people deal
with sexual peculiarities. Thus Ibn Abbad, the abovementioned
vizier, was fascinated by "what can only be described as the
pornography of the period". When feeling in a lively mood, one
would hear from him much about the early ninth-century sodomite
Jahshuya and such-like characters.(137) What could be more
suitable than tackling the ever problematic subject of sex by
exposing the sexuality of, supposedly, the lower strata? In a
different formulation, it was for the cultural elite in medieval
Islam convenient to display interest in various vulgarities by
ascribing them to their inferiors. In such manner a psychological
urge could be satisfied, and yet without detracting from social
esteem. Let us listen to what the poet known as Ibn al-Hajjaj, a
"scandalist" and "supreme pornographer" in the tenth century,
has to say on the matter.
"The sukhf [obscenity, scurrility, shamelesness] of my songs is
necessary,
For do we not all enjoy life and have cast off all shame?
Is there ever a house without a privy,
And could any intelligent person stay in such a house?"(138)
Didn't Ibn al-Hajjaj express in these lines a remarkable awareness
of the deep layer in the menIaliih of his contemporaries?
**
Recently an argument has been made that a refin

the history of culture should transcend the "choto
tendency to emphasize dichotomy between "high" and
"low".(139) Indeed one result which the two-direction flow of
Culture' in Early Modern England". Past & Present. CV (1984), esp. pp. 99-
113. Ingram's crucial argument on p. 112 is. unfortunately. not adequately
presented. For charivari see also Burke, Popular Culture, pp. 198-99.
(137) Bosworth, Underworld, I. pp. 32-35, 63.
(138) Ibid., p. 64.
(139) Marilyn R. Waldmann, "Primitive Mind/Modern Mind. New Approaches
to an Old Problem Applied to Islam", in Richard C. Martin (ed.). Approaches to
culture, as discussed in this article, would entail is the existence

despite cultural divisions (if one prefers the latter to cultural
hierarchy), of areas of common culture, of shared meanings, of
similar practices.('40) The Islamic cult of saints, already briefly
mentioned, is once again a good example. At some point it united
all socio-cultural blocks in medieval Islamic society.("') Thus the
Abbasid caliph al-Qadir (r. 991-1031) used to put on an ordinary
dress and visit the sanctuaries in Baghdad together with the
commoners.(142) The patronage of the cult of Shaykh Abd as-
Samad al-Isfahani in fourteenth-century Natanz (Iran) involved
both representatives of the Mongol Ilkanid court and the local Sufi
orders.('43) The renowned scholar and traveller Abd al-Ghai an-
Nabulusi, who himself performed visits (ziyara) to shrines in Syria
in the closing years of the seventeenth century, among them to the
grave of the prophet Shith (=Seth, son of Adam) near Hama, was
told that "the sick and infirm go to his shrine to gain baraka
[=blessing] by it and they are restored to health. We were told
also that a lion goes to it once every year and visits it".('")
The second result of the cultural flow is cultural syntheses
which, in the sense demanded by this presentation, have hardly
been studied. We could do well by adducing a few known
examples. In the realm of literature, a brief reference has already
been made to works of "obscenity" (sukhf), synthesizing slang
with high-culture topics. A suggestion about synthesis of the
reverse case, namely, the mingling of subject matters borrowed
from folk literature with style bearing the unmistakable signs of
Islam in Religious Studies (Tucson, 1985), esp. pp. 94, 100. Waldman, relying on
Jack Goody's work, also provides a subtle criticism of the latter.
(140) For the early modern English context see Ingram, "Ridings", p. 79.
(141) For criticism of the two-poled model of "learned religion" and "popular
religion" as employed in medieval studies see Thomas Tentler, "Seventeen Authors
in Search of Two Religious Cultures", Catholic Historical Review, LXXI (1985),
pp. 248-57. For treatment of the methodological issues involved see also Richard
C. Trexler, "Reverence and Profanity in the Study of Early Modern Religion" in
von Greyerz (ed.), Religion and Society, pp. 245-269.
(142) Mez, Renaissance, p. 12.
(143) Lisa Golombek, "The Cult of Saints and Shrine Architecture in the
Fourteenth Century", in Dickran K. Kouymijian (ed.), Near Eastern Numismatics,
Iconography, Epigraphy and History (Beirut, 1974), pp. 420-422. For another
example see p. 425.
(144) Elizabeth Sirriya "Ziyarat of Syria in a Rihla of 'Abd al-Gh5ni al-Nabulusi
(1050/1641-1143/1731)". J. Royal Asiatic Soc. (1979), p. 118.
106 BOAZ SHOSHAN
polite literature, has been m

perspective) with regards t
Shshnama.(145) In the sphere
now controversial view that "it
and the popular-that is, of t
static court procedure with
every-day middle-class life - th
of the eleventh and twelfth c
arts of the second half of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries
was born".(146) To concreticize the argument, there is one
illumination, dating from ca. 1200, to the Book of Antidotes, which
skillfully combines the courtly Iranian style and the courtly
subject with a realistic depiction. The first follows the rules of
strict symmetry, motionless figures, and presents a king in his
frontality; the second depicts vivid gestures and realistic
details.('47) By the mid-thirteeth century, it appears, a complete
synthesis is achieved, as manifested in a frontispiece in another
mauscript of the above mentioned Antidotes, probably from Mosul,
northern Iraq. There is a royal scene as the subject of its central
portion, the ruler, as in many other depictions, is drinking and
surrounded by his courtiers. But the traditional formality is
replaced by a great deal of realism and vividness. A seated man
in front of the ruler is preparing some roasted meat over a grill, an
attendant figure has dared to turn his head as if to whisper a word
(145) Jiii Cejpek, in Jan Rypka (ed.), History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht,
1968), pp. 625, 626-27. He adds that "the great epic masterpieces of Persian polite
literature are far more closely linked with folk-literature than was formerly
supposed; the relationship between polite literature and folk-literature is far more
profound, important and intense.., the influence of folk-literature is far more
extensive and penetrating than would appear at a first glance... Otherwise it would
be hard to explain how so many undisputedly ancient motifs, which were never
adopted by polite literature, have come down to us". See p. 643. Contrast this
with Pellat's somewhat cavalier view that apart from the "golden age of Arabic
literature", a time when Arab folklore was being handed on in written form, the
disdain felt by the educated for stories returned folkore, unlike its fate in other
parts of the world, into an exclusively oral tradition, although chapbooks, "hawked
in the markets" continue to circulate in popular levels. See art. "Hikiya", Encyc.
of Islam, New Ed. Vol. III, p. 371a.
(146) Ettinghausen, "Zoomorphic Masks", p. 224 and Grube's counter-argument
in n. 43 above.
(147) Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 90-92 and fig. on p. 85. Cf. also p.
to his neighbour, and we can observe the figures of four workme

behind the palace engaged in some ordinary labor.(148)
There are perhaps many more examples of synthesis of this sort
which students of the different branches of past Islamic cultu
may wish to consider.
Boaz SHOSHAN
(Beersheva, Israel)
(148) Ibid., pp. 91-92.

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Maisonneuve & Larose

High Culture and Popular Culture in Medieval Islam

Studied with an emphasis on its social context the culture

interrelated strata.(3) How

(3) Antonio Gramsci, Marxismo e letteratura (Rome, 1975), p. 178, cited in

questions relevant in this regard such as how rigid were th

There was a medieval Islamic court culture which developed at

collosal expenditure were a c

expeditions of provincial governors in which he took part, and especially the

and "Mirrors for Princes" had been an old Iranian genre wh

flourished in the eleventh to

Crafts of the Masters" (Risala fi sina

arts.(ss) Metalwork, that is gold and silver objects, were

dance and hunt. The "timeless grandeur of royal subjects

The second cultural block which existed in medieval Islam could

It was Adam Mez who, m

where decorations of bronze objects made for merchants sometim

(34) Oleg Grabar, "The Illustrated Maqdmst of the Thirteenth Century

the Maqamal, especially the M

(36) See arts. "al-Hamadhani" (H. Blach6re), "al-Hariri" (D. S. Margoliouth

centuries. "Even though it may be regretted that the illustra-

the two, bourgeois art existed

(42) Grabar, Formation, p. 186.

the bourgeois art of ceramics? On the one hand it imitated the a

formed part of groups that, placed in the centre of a table, would ha

class.(47) Here we can add to the artistic survivals textual

(47) Grabar, Formation, p. 186.

Two spheres of popular culture in medieval Islamic society are

annoyed orthodox scholars l

(60) Kitab al-qussi.s, pp. 104-106.

Last Days. Thus they painted there the picture of as-Sirat

The participation of medie

Let us turn briefly to literature. Anonymous romances (sir

books.(72) Finally, the "T

Historians of culture have gone a long way since Jonathan

ephebes" was originally a priv

dominated for techniques of the dominant... This interchange is directed by the

a few names associated with it, most prominent among th

those deceptive (mudilla) books... by which God does not offer an

approval of the celebration of the Prophet's birthday

Next I wish to examine another mode of relationship between

insignificance of Battal, at least at the time of the writing,

committed by the Muslim soldiers who had disclosed to the

(99) Ibid., and the sources cited there.

Marc Bloch has stated that the "influence of popular images on

(103) Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wan-nihaya, vol. IX, p. 334.

hundred years ago, had obs

(108) Muslim Studies, II, p. 298.

(ayyarun).(112) What can be reconstructed of the cultural content

the famous Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk (fl. 1066-

In the ninth century there appears, as reflected in literary

the Workshop of Ahmad al-Dhaki al-Mawsili", Ars Orienialis, II (1957),

Azdi in the tenth or elevent

(125) Bosworth, Underworld, I, p. 66.

tion of life" and that economic prosperity made medieval Muslims

(132) Bosworth, Underworld, I, pp. 30, 65.

Now one could speculate that

Recently an argument has been made that a refin

culture, as discussed in this article, would entail is the existence

polite literature, has been m

to his neighbour, and we can observe the figures of four workme

(148) Ibid., pp. 91-92.

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