Dr. Rebecca Gould - Poetry as Political Critique: Khāqānī’s Christian Qaṣīda
Channel: Recovering 'Lost Voices'
Date: 2016-03-01

Dr Rebecca Gould, Reader of Translation Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Bristol

Poetry as Political Critique: Khāqānī’s Christian Qaṣīda
Abstract: In this presentation, I will discuss the transformation of a literary genre—the Persian prison poem (ḥabsīyyāt)—in sixth/twelfth century Shirwān as a critical response to Islamic legal norms for governing non-Muslim peoples. While the first innovator in this genre was Mascūd Sacd Salmān of Lahore (d. 1121), Khāqānī of Shirwān (d. 1199) brought the prison poem to a new pitch of political salience a few decades later. My presentation lays particular emphasis on how the prison poem genre engaged with non-Muslim populations, particularly Christians, of Saljūq domains.

By tracing how Khāqānī brought the aesthetics of incarceration to bear on Islamic legal regulations pertaining to non-Muslim communities (ahl al-dhimma), I suggest new ways of understanding the politics of poetry in Persian culture. As I delineate the intertextual references to legal stipulations (shurūṭ) pertaining to non-Muslims that suffuse Khāqānī’s Christian Qaṣīda, I demonstrate how the Persian poetics of incarceration coalesced into a powerful internal critique of Islamic law.

Briefly stated, my argument is that Khāqānī engaged critically with Islamic legal writings pertaining to the treatment of non-Muslims in his Christian Qaṣīda. He did this through acts of literary subversion: whereas Islamic legal writings insists that non-Muslims must wear special clothing such as the zunnār to distinguish themselves from the Muslim majority population, Khāqānī presents himself in his verse (fictionally) as a Christian who wears non-Muslim clothing with pleasure. Khāqānī therefore uses poetry to identify with non-Muslim populations and to offer a critique of the discriminatory practices enshrined within Islamic legal writing.

Presented at The Subalterns Project, The First Workshop – on the pre-Safavid period, held at the University of Edinburgh, 7-8 November 2015.

For more detailed information about the project & the various workshops, please head to: http://www.shii-news.imes.ed.ac.uk/the-subalterns-project/