Adab as Social Currency: the Survival of the Qaṣīda in Medieval Sicily

Abstract

This article explores the resilience of the qaṣīda as social currency in the Kalbid and Norman periods of Sicily. It demonstrates how the Kalbid emirs incorporated the sociopoietic function of the Arabic ode — its capacity to create bonds of social exchange based on a shared ethos — in their programme to foster cohesion at a court potentially endangered by social, confessional and ethnic rivalries. It subsequently shows how the qaṣīda carried out a comparable function at the Norman court of Roger II, where Arabic poets once again resorted to the language and lore of the qaṣīda in order to craft a neutral space of interaction for Muslims and Christians at court.

Keywords

• Arabic literature
• Muslim Sicily
• Norman Sicily
• habitus
• qaṣīda
• Italian literature