Wafir

Wāfir (Arabic: وَافِر, literally 'numerous, abundant, ample, exuberant') is a meter used in classical Arabic poetry. It is among the five most popular metres of classical Arabic poetry, accounting (alongside ṭawīl, basīṭ, kāmil, and mutaqārib) for 80-90% of lines and poems in the ancient and classical Arabic corpus.^[1]

Form

The metre comprises paired hemistichs of the following form (where "–" represents a long syllable, "u" a short syllable, and "uu" one long or two shorts):^[2]

| u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – |

Thus, unlike most classical Arabic metres, wāfir allows the poet to substitute one long syllable for two shorts, an example of the prosodic element known as a biceps. Thus allows wāfir lines to have different numbers of syllables from each other, a characteristic otherwise only found in kāmil, mutadārik and some forms of basīṭ.^[3]

Wāfir is traditionally represented with the mnemonic (tafāʿīl) Mufāʿalatun Mufāʿalatun Faʿūlun (مُفَاعَلَتُنْ مُفاعَلَتُنْ فَعولُنْ).

History

Historically, wāfir perhaps arose, along with ṭawīl and mutaqārib, from hazaj.^[4] In the analysis of Salma K. Jayyusi, the Umayyad poet Jarir ibn Atiyah used the metre for about a fifth of his work, and at that time "this metre was still fresh and did not carry echoes of great pre-Islamic poets as did ṭawīl and baṣīt. Wāfir had therefore a great potential for introducing a diction nearer to the spoken language of the Umayyad period."^[5]

The metre, like other Arabic metres, was later borrowed into other poetic traditions. For example, it was adopted in Hebrew, where it is known as hamerubeh^[6] and became one of the pre-eminent metres of medieval poetry.^[7] In the Arabic and Arabic-influenced vernacular poetry of Sub-Saharan Africa it also features,^[8] for example in Fula^[9] and Hausa.^[10] It also underpins some oral poetic traditions in Palestine today.^[11] However, it was not used in Urdu, Turkish, or Persian (or perhaps, rather, it can be said to have merged for linguistic reasons with hazaj).^[12]

Examples

The following Arabic epigram by ‘Ulayya bint al-Mahdī is in wāfir metre:^[13]

كتمتُ اسم الحبيب من العباد * وردّدت الصبابة في فؤادي

فوا شوقي إلى بلدِِ خليّ * لعلّي باسْم من أهوى أنادي

katamtu sma l-ḥabībi mina l-‘ibādī / wa-raddadtu ṣ-ṣabābata fī fu’ādī

fa-wā-shawqī ’ilā baladin khaliyyin / la‘allī bi-smi man ’ahwā ’unādī

| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – uu – | u – – |

| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – – – | u – – |

I have hidden the name of my love from the crowd: / for my passion my heart is the only safe space.

How I long for an empty and desolate place / in order to call my love's name out aloud.

An example of the metre in Fula is the following poem by Ïsa ɓii Usmānu (1817-?):^[9]

Kulen Allaahu Mawɗo nyalooma jemma, / Mbaɗen ka salaatu, hooti mbaɗen salaama

He dow ɓurnaaɗo tagle he Aalo’en fuu, / Sahaabo’en he taabi’i, yimɓe himma.

Nufaare nde am mi yusɓoya gimɗi, anndee, / mi woyra ɗi Naana; ɓernde fu firgitaama

He yautuki makko, koowa he anndi juulɓe / mbaɗii hasar haqiiqa, cunninaama.

| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – |

| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – uu – | u – – |

| u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – || u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – |

| u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – – – | u – – |

Let us fear Allah the Great day and night, / let us continually invoke blessing and peace

Upon the best of creatures and all his kinsfolk, / his companions and followers, men of zeal.

Know ye, my intention is to compose verses / and with them to lament for Nāna; every heart is startled

At her passing, everyone knows that the Moslems / have suffered loss indeed, and have been saddened.

References

1. Paoli, Bruno (30 September 2009). "Generative Linguistics and Arabic Metrics". In Aroui, Jean-Louis; Arleo, Andy (eds.). Towards a Typology of Poetic Forms: From language to metrics and beyond. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 193–208. ISBN 978-90-272-8904-9.
2. van Gelder, Geert Jan, ed. (2013). "Introduction". Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology. NYU Press. pp. xiii–xxv. ISBN 978-0-8147-7027-6. JSTOR j.ctt9qfxj6.5.
3. Stoetzer, W. (1998). "Rajaz". In Meisami, Julie Scott; Starkey, Paul (eds.). Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. Taylor & Francis. pp. 645–646. ISBN 978-0-415-18572-1.
4. Toorawa, Shawkat M. (2012). "Review of Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms: Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th Birthday Presented by His Students and Colleagues". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 132 (3): 491–497. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.3.0491. JSTOR 10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.3.0491. Gale A314256029 ProQuest 1282115359.
5. Jayyusi, Salma K. (1983). "Umayyad poetry". Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. pp. 387–432. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521240154.021. ISBN 978-0-521-24015-4.
6. Rosenfeld-Hadad, Merav (2011). "Miṣḥaf al-Shbaḥot—The Holy Book of Praises of the Babylonian Jews: One Thousand Years of Cultural Harmony between Judaism and Islam". The Convergence of Judaism and Islam: Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions. pp. 241–271. doi:10.5744/florida/9780813036496.003.0013. ISBN 978-0-8130-3649-6.
7. Idelsohn, Abraham Zebi (1992). Jewish Music: Its Historical Development. Courier Corporation. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-486-27147-7.
8. Abdullah, Abdul-Samad (2009). "Intertextuality and West African Arabic Poetry: Reading Nigerian Arabic Poetry of the 19th and 20th Centuries". Journal of Arabic Literature. 40 (3): 335–361. doi:10.1163/008523709X12554960674610. JSTOR 20720593.
9. Arnott, D. W. (21 November 1985). "Literature in Fula". In Andrzejewski, B. W.; Pilaszewicz, S.; Tyloch, W. (eds.). Literatures in African Languages: Theoretical Issues and Sample Surveys. Cambridge University Press. pp. 72–96. ISBN 978-0-521-25646-9.
10. Greenberg, J. H. (1949). "Hausa Verse Prosody". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 69 (3): 125–135. doi:10.2307/594988. JSTOR 594988.
11. Yaqub, Nadia (2003). "Towards a Synchronic Metrical Analysis of Oral Palestinian Poetry". Al-'Arabiyya. 36: 1–26. JSTOR 43195707.
12. Deo, Ashwini; Kiparsky, Paul (2011). "Poetries in Contact: Arabic, Persian, and Urdu" (PDF). In Lotman, Mihhail; Lotman, Maria-Kristiina (eds.). Frontiers in Comparative Prosody: In Memoriam Mikhail Gasparov. Peter Lang. pp. 147–173. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.308.5139. ISBN 978-3-0343-0373-6.
13. van Gelder, Geert Jan, ed. (2013). "Three Love Epigrams by 'Ulayyah Bint al-Mahdī". Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology. NYU Press. pp. 46–48. ISBN 978-0-8147-7027-6. JSTOR j.ctt9qfxj6.23.