Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa

One volume comprises an anthology of 50 poems in their 14 original languages with English translations facing. The other presents 22 scholarly essays on the specific poems included and more generally on both the traditional and modern forms of the poetic genre that began in Arabic but is now used throughout Islamic Asia and Africa to express societal and religious feelings. They discuss such aspects as the origin and persistence of the qasida form, qasida form and the mystic path in 13th-century Egypt, the secular panegyric in Mughal and British India, late Ottoman and republican times, the Kurdish qasida, post-Mongol Iran, West Africa, the transformation of the form in modern Arabic poetry, propagating morals through popular music in modern Indonesia, the influence of the qasida on the development of Swahili rhymed and metered verse, and discourses on power and its Islamization. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Stefan Sperl Ph.D. (London 1977), worked for UNHCR from 1978 to 1988 and now teaches Arabic literature and refugee studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London; his publications includeMannerism in Arabic Poetry (Cambridge 1989).Christopher Shackle Ph.D. (London 1972), FBA. is Professor of Modern Languages of South Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He has published extensively on South Asian languages and literatures, especially Urdu und Panjabi.