Abu Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Abu al-Fath (1058–1138/9), called Ibn Khafajah (إبن خفاجة), a native of
Alzira, was a poet of
al-Andalus during the reign of the
Almoravids.[1] He was born in 1058 in
Alzira (Arabic: جزيرة شقر) near
Valencia where he spent most of his life.[1] He was the maternal uncle of poet
Ibn al-Zaqqaq.[2]
He wrote sophisticated nature poetry.[3] He remained unmarried but had many friends[4] and lived to be over eighty.[1]There is a style based on him afterwards followed by many known as 'khafājī'.
His poetry often uses images to a dramatic function, such as contrasting light and darkness, or humanising the night environment.[2]
Composer
Mohammed Fairouz set three poems of Ibn Khafajah to music in a cycle of vocal
chamber music written for the Cygnus Ensemble.[5]
^
abcSamuel G. Armistead, E. Michael Gerli (ed.), Medieval Iberia, an Encyclopedia, 2003, entry "Ibn Khafaja"
^
abMaría Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, Michael Anthony Sells, The literature of Al-Andalus, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 224
^Salma Khadra Jayyusi, "Nature poetry and the rise of Ibn Khafaja," in: Salma Khadra Jayyusi (ed.), The legacy of Muslim Spain, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994, p. 381
^
abArie Schippers "Ibn Khafaja (1058-1139) in Morocco. Analysis of a laudatory poem addressed to a member of the Almoravid clan," in: Otto Zwartjes e.a. (ed.) Poetry, Politics and Polemics: Cultural Transfer Between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996, p. 14
Arthur Wormhoudt (ed.), The Diwan of Abu Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abu Al-Fath Ibn Khafaja, Oskaloosa, Ia.: William Penn College, 1987,
ISBN978-0-916358-39-6
Arie Schippers "Ibn Khafaja (1058-1139) in Morocco. Analysis of a laudatory poem addressed to a member of the Almoravid clan," in: Otto Zwartjes e.a. (ed.) Poetry, Politics and Polemics: Cultural Transfer Between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996,
ISBN90-420-0105-4 (pp. 13–34)
Magda M. Al-Nowaihi, The Poetry of Ibn Khafajah A Literary Analysis, (Rev. version of the author's thesis, Harvard, 1987), Leiden: Brill, 1993
ISBN978-90-04-09660-8
Burgel, J. C., "Man, Nature and Cosmos as Intertwining Elements in the Poetry of Ibn Khafāja," in: Journal of Arabic literature; vol. 14, 1983 (p. 31)
Hamdane Hadjadji and
André Miquel, Ibn Khafaja l’Andalou, L’amant de la nature, Paris: El-Ouns, 2002
Abd al-Rahman Janair, Ibn Khafaja l-Andalusi, Beirut: Dar al-Afaq, 1980
External links
The Mountain Poem English translation and Arabic recording of Ibn Khafaja's most famous poem at Poems Found in Translation.