Abdullah al-Kafif az-Zarhuni (; born in

Zerhoun Zerhoun ( ar, جبل زرهون also spelled Zarhun or Zarhon) is a mountain in Morocco, north of Meknes. On the hill is the Moulay Idris Zerhoun town, named after Moulay Idris I, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty who was buried there in 791 A ...

- died 1348) was a Moroccan ''

zajal Zajal () is a traditional form of oral strophic poetry declaimed in a colloquial dialect. While there is little evidence of the exact origins of the zajal, the earliest recorded zajal poet was the poet Ibn Quzman of al-Andalus who lived from 1078 ...

'' poet in the

Marinid The Marinid Sultanate was a Berber Muslim empire from the mid-13th to the 15th century which controlled present-day Morocco and, intermittently, other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) a ...

period. He is known for composing an epic ''zajal'' poem known as '' Mala'bat al-Kafif az-Zarhuni'' (, ''al-Kafif az-Zarhuni's Playground)'', considered the first text in Moroccan vernacular Arabic, in the period of Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman al-Marini.

Biography

Sources on the life of al-Kafif az-Zarhuni are rare; the most important is

Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...

Muqaddimah The ''Muqaddimah'', also known as the ''Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun'' ( ar, مقدّمة ابن خلدون) or ''Ibn Khaldun's Prolegomena'' ( grc, Προλεγόμενα), is a book written by the Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ...

, which mentions ''Mala'bat al-Kafif az-Zarhuni'' and refers to its author only by his ''

laqab Arabic language names have historically been based on a long naming system. Many people from the Arabic-speaking and also Muslim countries have not had given/ middle/family names but rather a chain of names. This system remains in use throughout ...

.'' Ibn Khaldun mentions that al-Kafif az-Zarhuni was visually impaired, which explains his ''laqab'' al-Kafif ''( the blind).'' Muḥammad Bin Sharīfah, an expert on ''Mala'bat al-Kafif az-Zarhuni'' states that az-Zarhuni's name was Abdullah. Ibn Khaldun states that al-Kafif came from the Sariwa tribe of the Beni Yazgha near

Sefrou Sefrou is a city in central Morocco situated in the Fès-Meknès region. It recorded a population of 79,887 in the 2014 Moroccan census, up from 63,872 in the 2004 census. Sefrou is known for its historical Jewish population, and its annual cherry ...

, and lived in the time of Sultan Abu al-Hasan al-Marini. The second source is the Moroccan historian Muḥammad Bin Sharīfah's study of ''Mala'bat al-Kafif az-Zarhuni'' published in 1987, which posits that al-Kafif might have died around 1348 in the plague that struck Morocco.

''Mala'bat al-Kafif az-Zarhuni''

''al-Mala'ba ''takes the form of an

epic poem An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

in the ''

'' style. It took the name ''Mala'bat'' (playground) due to the al-Kafif's playing around with the ''qafiyas'', or rhyme schemes. This kind of poetry flourished in the Marinid period, and Ibn Khaldun discusses the spread of ''zajal'' in the ''Muqaddimah:'' ''"إن أهل فاس وغيرهم استحسنوا هذا الفن، وولعوا به، ونظموا على طريقته، وتركوا الإعراب الذي ليس من شأنهم، وكثر سماعه بينهم، واستفحل فيه كثير منهم '' ''Indeed the people of Fes and others improved this art and gave themselves to it, and composed in this style, and abandoned the

ʾiʿrab (, ) is an Arabic term for the system of nominal, adjectival, or verbal suffixes of Classical Arabic to mark grammatical case. These suffixes are written in fully vocalized Arabic texts, notably the '' '' or texts written for children or Arabic ...

that they didn't care for, and it was heard more among them, and many of them thrived in it.''" And he added, speaking specifically about al-Kafif az-Zarhuni and ''al-Mala'ba:'' "An outstanding poet in Zarhun, 1295 in the region of Meknes, close to the present time, was a man known as alKafif (the blind one). He produced original specimens of these types of poetry." al-Zarhuni organized his Malaaba on the subject of the military campaign into

Hafsid The Hafsids ( ar, الحفصيون ) were a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Berber descentC. Magbaily Fyle, ''Introduction to the History of African Civilization: Precolonial Africa'', (University Press of America, 1999), 84. who ruled Ifriqiya (western ...

territory, led by Sultan

Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman Abu Al-Hasan 'Ali ibn 'Othman (c. 1297 – 24 May 1351), () was a sultan of the Marinid dynasty who reigned in Morocco between 1331 and 1348. In 1333 he captured Gibraltar from the Castilians, although a later attempt to take Tarifa in 1339 en ...

of the

Marinid dynasty The Marinid Sultanate was a Berber Muslim empire from the mid-13th to the 15th century which controlled present-day Morocco and, intermittently, other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) a ...

. The goal of the campaign was to unite the Maghreb under one state. The campaign failed as the Marinids were defeated at

Qairawan Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by th ...

. The poem was a sort of consolation for the defeat, and it serves as a valuable historical document as it details the social and political situation at the time.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kafif az-Zarhuni 1348 deaths 14th-century Moroccan poets Marinid Sultanate Moroccan male poets Year of birth unknown