ÿAbà « ṬÃÂlib ÿAbd al-SalÃÂm ibn al-Ḥasan al-Maþmà «në (; after 953 CE in Baghdad â 993) was an Arab poet, noted for his epigrammatic writing.
Al-Maþmà «në's name indicates that he was descended from the caliph al-Maþmà «n. Though born in BaghdÃÂd, he soon moved to Rayy, where he studied with á¹¢ÃÂḥib Ibn ÿAbbÃÂd; falling out with some of Ibn ÿAbbÃÂd's circle, he moved to NëshÃÂpà «r, joining the court of Abu âÂÂl-Ḥusayn al-ÿUtbë and his successor Abà « Naá¹£r in BukhÃÂràthrough the patronage of Ibn Sëmjà «r, a SÃÂmÃÂnid commander. There he met al-Tha'ÃÂlibë, who was later to write a biography and record the lion's share of al-Maþmà «në's surviving verse. Although al-Tha'ÃÂlibë reports that al-Maþmà «në aspired to win (or regain?) the ÿAbbÃÂsid caliphate, this clearly never transpired, and he died of hydropsy in 383/993.
While he wrote in other forms, al-Maþmà «në's oeuvre is most noted for its short, ekphrastic epigrams, showing Persian influence and characteristic of the Perso-Arabic literary concept of waá¹£f ('description') on themes such as buildings, utensils (for example, writing implements, scissors, baskets), fruits, and foods. The following, 'fë al-tannà «r' ('on a baking oven') is an example (albeit attested only in one manuscript):
(Here the conceit is that an unbaked piece of bread looks like the moon, and when baked it is like the sun.)
Another example is this five-line verse in three-foot rajaz lines:
Epigrams included by Bürgel but not in the Beirut edition:
Al-Maþmà «në's style is a good example of the general tendencies of Arabic poetry of the 4th/10th centuries, which, like the New Persian poetry that was emerging at the same time, tended towards florid and sophisticated forms resembling later European mannerism; no verse was complete without incorporating some conceit (Persian nukte). Thus al-Maþmà «në uses ostentatiously artful language and unusual words, sometimes creating a purposefully comical contrast between the banality of the content and the pathos of the expression. In Bürgel's estimation, al-Maþmà «në's language is sometimes rather strained, as in epigram 45 (in Bürgel's numbering, on barley-water), but at other times manages to sound both natural and fresh, as in epigram 7 (on a palm-fibre basket). Though not much inclined to use hyperbole or the device of repeating the same word in different meaning, al-Maþmà «në is fond of word-play and sound-play, making extensive use of assonance and alliteration. He often deploys antithesis, ranging from simple opposites such as standing and sitting (e.g. poems 1, 2, 3, 94), black and white (e.g. 73), or gold and silver (76, 78, 83, 84) to complex forms (and, in 11 and 18, joking pseudo-antitheses).
Metaphor is central to al-Maþmà «në's epigrams, which often have a riddlic quality: while in some poems, the subject is named explicitly at the outset, others start with the metaphor, challenging the audience to guess the subject matter before being explicit. While all his descriptions are short and pointed and characterised by fantastical metaphors, each poem almost always contains one or more lines that make a literal statement about the subject, for example that the throne has iron posts and a leather cover (epigram 1), that the bucket is made in Damascus and that its handle creaks (6), or that there are brown and white feathers in the pen box (14).
Personification of inanimate objects is a key technique, sometimes achieved using the terms dhà «/dhÃÂt ('owner'), and ibn/ibna ('son/daughter'). Al-Maþmà «në values harmonious choices of metaphors in his epigrams, for example using only tree-based metaphors in poem 4, and uses a rich array of linguistic techniques to express his comparisons: the usual particles ka kaþanna, kaþannamÃÂ, mithl and li; verbs from the roots sh-b-h (form IV) and ḥ-k-y (forms I and III); first-person verbs reflecting his personal perspective such as khaltu, ḥasibtu, raþaitu, taþammaltu; and direct "A = B" juxtaposition of his comparisons without particles. Al-Maþmà «në's favoured form of metonymy is synecdoche, especially via adjectives, which also contributes to the riddlic character of the verse. He makes extensive use of the technique that the Persian critic of Arabic literature al-JurjÃÂnë called tafṣël ('going into details'), whereby a natural unity is dissolved into a fantastic multiplicity: for example, epigram 64, on the melon, says that "" ('she has a garment made of pomegranate flowers and lilies, covered with myrtles after rain'). Much more rarely, he uses the opposite device of presenting a multiplicity as a whole (as in epigram 73, on white cheese and olives). Like riddles, al-Maþmà «në's epigrams frequently deploy comparison through subtraction: thus the candle-holder (epigram 4) is "" ('like a garden in which a large tree trembles which neither earth nor rain enabled to grow').
The main source for al-Maþmà «në and his work is the KitÃÂb Yatëmat al-dahr fë mahÃÂsin ahl al-ÿasá¹ by Abà « Maná¹£à «r al-ThaÿÃÂlibë (who had met al-Maþmà «në and had access to at least some of his verse in manuscript):
Some verses appear elsewhere, including the NihÃÂyat al-arab by al-Nuwayri and the AsrÃÂr al-balÃÂgha by al-JurjÃÂnë.