{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_mhm_mhm53_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_mhm_mhm53_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_mhm_mhm53_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/mhm/mhm53.htm","summary":"This is an excerpt from the *Maq\u00e1m\u00e1t* (Assemblies) of Bad\u00ed' al-Zam\u00e1n al-Hamadh\u00e1n\u00ed, a medieval Arabic literary form consisting of short rhymed-prose narratives, translated by W.J. Prendergast in 1915. The genre blends storytelling with virtuosic linguistic display, and this collection is among the earliest and most celebrated examples of the maq\u0101ma tradition. The narrator, '\u00cds\u00e1 ibn Hish\u00e1m, recounts a chance meeting with the roguish traveler Ab\u00fa'l Fat\u1e25 al-Iskander\u00ed on a desert road, where initial menace dissolves into companionship as the two exchange stories about the generosity of various rulers across Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, and beyond. The encounter culminates in an elaborate panegyric \u2014 delivered in verse \u2014 praising a king (apparently Khalaf ibn A\u1e25mad) for superhuman liberality, piety, and noble lineage. The translator's footnotes add a critical counterpoint, noting that historical sources paint this praised ruler as treacherous and cruel, exposing the text's panegyric as courtly flattery rather than factual portraiture. Readers drawn to classical Arabic prose style, the maq\u0101ma genre's mix of adventure and rhetorical showmanship, or the tension between literary idealization and historical reality will find this excerpt representative of both the form's pleasures and its conventions.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Maqamat of al-Hamadhani: The Maq\u00e1m\u00e1t: XLV. The Maq\u00e1ma of Kings","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":647}