Authors
Abstract
Similar to any poetic genre, eulogy of the Prophet (pbuh) has progressed through various stages and experienced vicissitudes of history. The genre was first developed by such great poets as Ka’b bin Zuhayr and Hassan ibn Th?bit, and continued to survive inspired by the Holy Qur’an and the Prophet’s tradition.
The Period of Decadence (the Mongol, Mam?l?k, and Ottoman Empires) was the heyday of this poetic genre which reached its apogee through the artistic contest of distinguished poets including al-Busiri, Safi al-Din Helli, and Ibn Nub?ta al-Misri, and became an independent genre of poetry with its particuliar construction and characteristics. The genre starts a new trend in the contemporary period through the efforts made by poets such as Mahmud S?mi al-B?rudi, Ahmad Shawqi, and others.
While giving an introduction to the genre of eulogy, and eulogies after the Prophet (pbuh), and how they came into existence, the present article presents a comparative study of this poetic genre in the contemporary period and the Period of Decadence, and deals with the renovation and imitation developed in this genre in the contemporary period as compared with the eulogies in praise of the Prophet produced in the Period of Decadence.
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