Year:2022   Volume: 4   Issue: 1   Area: Literature

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Khalid Ahmad SINDAWI

ELEGIES FOR THE PROPHET'S FAMILY BY CONTEMPORARY LEBANESE CHRISTIAN POETS

The study discusses elegiac poetry on the Prophet's family composed by Lebanese poets belonging to the Christian community there. We chose a selection of writings by four contemporary Christian poets: Joseph al-Hāshim, Paul Salāma, Raymond Qasīs and Joseph al-Ḥarb. The study opens with a discussion of the meaning of elegies as a human, social and individual poetic object, that has been cultivated by poets since pre-Islamic times. Next, the study discusses the reason why the Prophet's family has been the subject of so many elegies, namely the important position this family occupied among poets. Subsequently we discuss why Christian poets in Lebanon have composed numerous elegies for members of the Prophet's family, especially ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his son al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, namely the fact that elegies constitute a unique human phenomenon that is in keeping with divine teachings, especially concerning the Prophet's family. The study uses both descriptive and analytic methods.

Keywords: The Prophet's Family, Elegy, Al-Ḥusayn B. ʿalī, ʿalī B. Abī Ṭālib, Contemporary Arabic Poetry, Christian Poets, Lebanon, Christian Poetry, Shīʿī Poetry.

http://dx.doi.org/10.47832/2717-8293.15.46


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