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The Cloak of Joseph: A qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ Image in an Arabic and a Hebrew Poem of Desire
- Author(s):
- Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations (view group) , Shari Lowin
- Editor(s):
- Michael Pregill
- Date:
- 2017
- Group(s):
- Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations
- Subject(s):
- Qurʼan, Islam--Study and teaching, Islam, Middles Ages, Spain--Andalusia, Bible, Reader-response criticism
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Islamic literature, Arabic poetry, Hebrew poetry, Prophets in Islam, Bible in Islam, Qur'an studies, Islamic studies, Medieval Islam, al-Andalus, Reception of the Bible
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/b2kw-7p51
- Abstract:
- This study analyzes the use of a qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ narrative in two secular homoerotic poems of desire (ʿishq) written by religious authority figures in Muslim Spain, one in Arabic and one in Hebrew. In the Arabic poem, by the Cordoban jurist Ibn Ḥazm (384–456/994–1064), the lover compares the scent of the clothes of his absent beloved to a qiṣaṣ account in which the scent of the prophet Joseph’s cloak miraculously heals his grieving father’s blindness. Since a similar narrative appears in the Qurʾān, this study analyzes why Ibn Ḥazm chose the qiṣaṣ version over the qurʾānic account and what messages about human love and desire Ibn Ḥazm’s poem thereby sends. The Hebrew poem, by Ibn Ḥazm’s one-time friend Samuel ha-Nagid (993–1055), uses a similar reference to the cloak of Joseph, despite the fact that the frame-narrative appears in neither the Bible nor rabbinic literature. This study argues that Samuel may have borrowed the image from Ibn Ḥazm but that in doing so, his poem sends an entirely different message about love and lovers.
- Notes:
- This is a stable archival PDF of an open-access, peer-reviewed journal article originally published at www.mizanproject.org/journal/.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 2 years ago
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
lowin_the-cloak-of-joseph.pdf