‘The Sarcastic Nature Of Abbassidian Poetry In The Second And Third Century Of The Islamic Calendar’

This study is based on the assessment of sarcasm in Abbassidian poetry in the second and third century of the Islamic calender, and it became evident that the appearance of sarcasm came about as a result of large social changes that affected both the individual and his community. The poets took this opportunity to use methods of criticism and change. So they tried to expose many of the problems and defects in their society using high rhetoricalistic methods and they hence called for change in the social system.

The study is built on seven chapters:

The first chapter comprises of the reasons for choosing sarcasm in poetry, the reasons for its appearance, its definition and its relation to the individual and the community, its different types and methods of use, why the poets used it and its relation with the terms associated with it.

 In the second chapter several topics which sarcasm acted on were discussed; sarcasm on the outward features of humans, on the subject of dwarfism, on being bald, about having a large nose, about ugliness, long beardedness and on having tacky and patched up clothing.

The third chapter focused on sarcasm about the symbolic aspects of a human and his life. Under this title came the following topics; sarcasm about poverty, about miserliness and being miserly, about deficiency in manliness and being cowardly, about lineage, about stupidity, about contradiction in the persons life and about breaking promises.

The fourth chapter discussed the way that different social groups used sarcasm. The chapter talked about spouses, girls, the rich, the servants, the slave girls, the poets, the book writers, the grammatarians and the scholastic theologians.

The fifth chapter discussed how the poets scorned the upper class of their society this included the caliphates and princes, the , the judges, the poets and other government employees.

The sixth chapter looked at sarcasm used on issues related to religion, civilization and heritage. So they were sarcastic towards the simple life of the Arab, and they negated that the Arabs had any sort of civilized nature of elegance. They also called for the Arabs to compete with the Persian way of life. And some of these poets exceeded the limits in there talk about particular aspects of religion that they differed with.

The seventh chapter discussed the use of language and imagery in poetry. Hence there appeared two dialects in the language used; formal spoken Arabic and colloquial speech with some foreign words entering the formal dialect. This manifested new methods that enriched the art of sarcasm and increased its impact. The most significant of these methods was the method of using contrasting meanings and the method of unifying two words that have contradicting meanings. These methods aided in the formation of new forms of imagery the most apparent of which was the cartoon sketch which is so elaborate it appears to speak itself. Ibn Arumi came out as a pioneer for this type of imagery.