Al-Hariri of Basra

He is known for his Maqamat al-Hariri (also known as the ‘'Assemblies of Hariri'’), a collection of some 50 stories written in the Maqama style, a mix of verse and literary prose. For more than eight centuries, Al-Hariri's best known work, his Maqamat has been regarded as one of the greatest treasure in Arabic literature after the Quran and the Pre-Islamic poetic canons. Although the maqamat did not originate with al-Hariri, he elevated the genre to an art form.

Biography

Al-Hariri was born 446 AH (1054 AD) and died in his native city of Basra on 6 Rajab, AH 516 (10 September 1122 AD). Although his place of birth is uncertain, scholars suggest that he was probably born in Mashan near Basra, where his family had a palm tree plantation. and only resided in Basra after the age of maturity. The street where he died, Bani Haram, was a place where certain families were known to have settled and was a centre of Basra's silk manufacturing industry. His name, al-Hariri, probably reflects his residence (hariri = silk manufacturer or silk merchant).

He liked to boast of his Arab heritage: he was a descendant of Rabi’at al Faras, son of Nizār, the son of Ma’add, the son of Adnan al-Ya`muri, who was a companion of Muhammad.

His family had achieved great wealth, enabling him to receive a good education, studying with Al-Qasabani. He is known to have studied jurisprudence, after which time he became a munshi (official writer). His occupation is generally described as a high official. Al-Hariri divided his time between Basra where he had his business interests and Baghdad where he carried out his literary activities.

He is best known for writing Maqamat al-Hariri (مقامات الحريري, also known as The Assemblies of al-Hariri), a virtuosic display of saj', consisting of 50 anecdotes written in stylized prose, which was once memorized by heart by scholars, and Mulhat al-i'rab fi al-nawh, an extensive poem on grammar.

Various accounts of Al-Hariri's inspiration to write the Maqmat can be found in the literature. One account, which has become the established account, was related by Al Hariri's son, Abu al-Qasim Abdullah, is that the author and his servants, were seated in a mosque in Banu Haaran when an indigent man, by the name of Abu Zayd, dressed in ragged cloaks, entered and spoke with great fluency and elegance. The speaker related the story of his native city of Saruj being ransacked and his daughter taken captive.

As soon as it first appeared, Al-Hariri's Maqamat attained enormous popularity across the Arab-speaking world, with people travelling from as far afield as Andalusia (Spain) to hear the verse read from the author's lips. The work's alternative title, ‘'The Assemblies'’ comes from the fact that maqamat were recited before an assembled audience. Even during the author's lifetime, the work was worthy of memorisation, public recitation and literary commentaries. Al-Hariri himself recited his Maqamat before learned audiences and scholars. Audience members would take dictation or make corrections to their own personal manuscripts. At the time, this type of public recitation was the main method for disseminating copies of literary works in the Arab speaking world.

When al-Hariri had written 40 maqamat, he collected them into a single volume and headed to Baghdad where he expected a triumphant reception. However, his opponents accused him of plagiarism; they claimed that the Assemblies were in fact the work of a writer from the Western Maghreb who had died in Baghdad and whose papers had fallen into Al-Hariri's hands. To test the merit of such claims, the Vizier sent for al-Hariri and invited him to compose a letter on a specified subject. However, Al-Hariri was not an improviser, rather he required long periods of solitude in which to compose his stories, and although he retired to a corner for a lengthy period, he was unable to produce anything and was ashamed. In an effort to redeem his reputation, al -Hariri returned to Basra where he composed ten additional maqamat in the following months.

He married and had two sons. His sons were trained in the recitation of their father's Maqamat.

In terms of al-Hariri's physical appearance, he was very short in stature and wore a beard, which he had the habit of plucking when he was deep in thought He was described as not a particularly handsome man. When visitors shunned his appearance, he would tell them: "I am a man to be heard, not seen".

Political context

Al-Hariri lived in Iraq at a time when the Seljuks ruled over the region. The region of Mesopotamia was under the control of the Seljuk Empire from 1055 to 1135, since the Oghuz Turk Tughril Beg had expelled the Shiite Buyid dynasty. Tughril Beg entered Baghdad in 1055, and was the first Seljuk ruler to style himself Sultan and Protector of the Abbasid Caliphate. Mesopotamia remained under the control of the Great Seljuks during the reign of Muhammad I Tapar (1082–1118 CE), but from 1119, his 14 years old son Mahmud II (1118–1131) was restricted to the only rule of Iraq, while Sanjar took control of the rest of the Empire. In order to counter the ambitions of Abbasid Caliph al-Mustarshid (1118–1135), who wanted to acquire world dominance, in 1124 Mahmūd granted the city of Wasit to Imad al-Din Zengi (born 1085) as an ıqta, and conferred him the Military Governorship of Basra together with Baghdad and the whole of Iraq in 1127. That same year, Imad al-Din Zengi was also named Governor of Mosul, where the Atabegdom of Mosul was formed.