study of the “vizier culture” that promoted literary rivalries of this kind, see England, Medieval Empires.
3.Hämeen-Anttila has pointed out that al-Hamadhānī “was not seen primarily as a maqama writer by his contemporaries” and suggests that his reputation as the master of the genre may have arisen because of al-Ḥarīrī’s later efforts to outdo him (Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama, 117–25).
4.Etymologically, maqāmah indicates any occasion when one stands, and by extension a speech made before an audience. As used by al-Ḥarīrī and al-Hamadhānī, its obvious sense is that of a verbal performance delivered to strangers while standing in a mosque, market, or street, as opposed to one delivered while seated in comfort among friends, as would be the case in a majlis. Even so, the term’s wide application as a designation for literary works has generated much discussion. My position is that of Katia Zakharia, who argues that no single definition is adequate to the variety of documented uses (Zakharia, Abū Zayd, 93–101). I would add that even if the connection between “standing” and a particular kind of speech was at some point clear, it was evidently lost over time—just as, for example, no one today is quite sure what the word “tragedy” originally meant. In practice, a maqāmah is simply the genre, or any single example of it, known by that name. Throughout this book, I will use the capitalized word (Imposture, Impostures) to refer to the genre or to individual maqāmāt. I will use Impostures in italics only when referring to al-Ḥarīrī’s text.
5.Al-Hamadhānī’s Impostures were collected, copied, and published at different times, but apparently never by the author himself, making it impossible to know whether we have them all or whether all the ones attributed to him are genuine. See Pomerantz and Orfali, “Three Maqāmāt.” Whether he was the first to write Impostures is a question much debated in the secondary literature. For an incisive summary see Malti-Douglas, “Maqāmāt,” 247–51, and Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama, 64–73.
6.For a more detailed overview see Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama, 38–61.
7.Prendergast, Maqamat, 21.
8.On the date see MacKay, “Certificates,” 8–9.
9.More fully Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥarīrī al-Baṣrī al-Ḥarāmī, “al-Qāsim, the father of Muḥammad, the son of ʿAlī the silk trader, from the quarter of the Ḥarām tribe in Basra.” One biographer calls him Ibn al-Ḥarīrī (Yāqūt, Muʿjam, 5:2202), implying that the silk trader in question was an ancestor.
10.Most critics no longer believe that he was inspired by meeting with a real mountebank named Abū Zayd: see Zakharia, “Norme.” But one version of the story seems plausible enough: see the note to Imposture 48. Al-Ḥarīri’s preface speaks vaguely of a patron; see further the notes to §0.3.
11.The major pre-modern biographies are Yāqūt, Muʿjam, 5:2202–16, and Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, 4:63–68. The essential modern studies are de Sacy, Séances, 2:1–50, and Zakharia, Abū Zayd, 23–51.
12.On the complex political history see de Sacy, Séances, 2 (introduction, by M. Reynaud and M. Derenbourg): 5–14, 21–27, 28–31, 42, 50.
13.Yāqūt, Muʿjam, 5:2206.
14.This is a real condition known as trichotillomania. One of my college roommates dealt with stress by yanking on his hair, a habit that eventually produced a distinct bald spot on the top of his head.
15.Yāqūt, Muʿjam, 5:2204.
16.Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, 4:65.
17.This account is based on MacKay, “Certificates.”
18.Yāqūt, Muʿjam, 2205. As Asma Sayeed and Bilal Abdelhady have pointed out to me, al-Ḥarīrī might well have authorized dozens of copies at a time by reading aloud to large groups of people. Thus the number seven hundred, though doubtless an approximation, need not be dismissed as a mere figure of speech.
19.Yāqūt, Muʿjam, 2205. It should be noted that not all readers have agreed (as Yāqūt implies) that al-Ḥarīrī outdid his predecessor. For example, Margoliouth and Pellat flatly describe his Impostures as “no more than a pale reflection of those of al-Hamadhānī” (“al-Ḥarīrī”).
20.Stewart, “Maqāmah,” 145.
21.Reinaud and Derenbourg attribute al-Ḥarīrī’s “decadence” to Persian and Hellenistic influences (quoted in de Sacy, Séances, 2:54). Rückert felt the need to apologize for what he calls “der falscher Orientalischer Geschmack,” but suggests that it is redeemed by humor (Rückert, Verwandlungen, VI and XII). Ernest Renan was more severe, commenting that the Impostures, “appréciée d’après nos idées européennes, dépasse tout ce qu’il est permis d’imaginer en fait de mauvais goût.” For him, al-Ḥarīrī is primarily of interest as an exemplar of “Arab decadence.” See Renan, “Les Séances de Hariri,” 288 and 300; I thank Maurice Pomerantz for this reference. For a deconstruction of Renan’s views see Kilito, Séances, 202–8. Also noteworthy here is Devin Stewart’s observation that in pronouncing these harsh judgments, European scholars were not necessarily expressing “Orientalist disdain for Arabic literary sensibilities” but rather “parroting views prominent in Arabic literary studies in the Islamic world” (Stewart, “Classical Arabic Maqāmāt”).
22.Keegan, “Commentarial Acts,” 81–117.
23.On the language of the Qurʾan as “the Discourse of the Eternal” see, e.g., Lumbard, “The Quran in Translation.”
24.Paradise
