Riddles (Arabic)

Riddles are historically a significant genre of Arabic verse, and extensive scholarly collections have also been made of riddles in oral circulation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Analysis of this literary form has, however, been neglected by modern scholars.[1]

Terminology

Riddles are known in Arabic principally as lughz (Arabic: لُغز‎) (pl. alghāz ألغاز), but other terms include uḥjiyya (pl. aḥājī), and ta'miya.[2] The term mu‘ammā (literally 'blinded' or 'obscured') is sometimes used as a synonym for lughz (or to denote cryptography or codes more generally), but it can be used specifically to denote a riddle which is solved 'by combining the constituent letters of the word or name to be found'.[3]

Lughz is a capacious term.[4] As al-Nuwayrī (1272–1332) puts it in the chapter on alghāz and aḥājī in his Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab:

Lughz is thought to derive from the phrase alghaza ’l-yarbū‘u wa-laghaza, which described the action of a field rat when it burrows its way first straight ahead but then veers off to the left or right in order to more successfully elude its enemies (li-yuwāriya bi-dhālika) so that it becomes, as it were, almost invisible (wa-yu‘ammiya ‘alā ṭālibihī). But in fact our language also has many other names of lughz such as mu’āyāh, ’awīṣ, ramz, muḥāgāh, abyāt al-ma’ānī, malāḥin, marmūs, ta’wīl, kināyah, ta‘rīd, ishārah, tawgīh, mu‘ammā, mumaththal. Although each of these terms is used more or less interchangeably for lughz, the very fact that there are so many of them is indicative of the varied explanations which the concept of lughz can apparently support.[5]

This array of terms goes beyond those covered by riddle in English, into metaphor, ambiguity, and punning, indicating the fuzzy boundaries of the concept of the riddle in literary Arabic culture.[6]

Early attestations

As of 2011, 'the emergence of the Arabic literary riddle needs yet to be studied'.[7] The Koran does not contain riddles as such, though it does contain conundra.[8] But riddles are attested in early Arabic literary culture, 'scattered in old stories attributed to the pre-Islamic bedouins, in the ḥadīth and elsewhere; and collected in chapters'.[9]

One of the earliest attested composers of riddles was Dhu al-Rummah (c. 696-735), whose verse riddles 'undoubtedly contributed' to the 'rooting and spread' of Arabic literary riddles, particularly his ode 49, now known as uHjyat al-‘Arab ('the riddle-poem of the Arabs'). This comprises a nasīb (stanzas 1-14), travel faHr (15-26) and then a series of enigmatic statements (28-72).[10] Odes 27, 64, 82 and 83 also contain riddles.[11][12] A riddle contest, supposedly between the sixth-century CE Imru' al-Qais and ‘Abīd ibn al-AbraS exists, but is not thought actually to have been composed by these poets.[13]

Early collections of riddles include chapter 89 of al-Zahra by Ibn Dā’ūd al-Iṣbahāni (868-909 CE), al-ʿIqd al-Farīd by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih (book 25, section entitled Bāb al-lughz), and Ḥilyat al-muḥāḍara by al-Ḥātimi. 'The works of Abū al-‘Alā’ al-Mar‘arrī are riddled with riddles',[14] and al-Mar‘arrī's lost work Gāmi‘ al-awzān is also thought to have contained many riddles, some of which are preserved by later scholars, principally Ibn al-‘Adīm.[15] Several stories in One Thousand and One Nights involve riddles. For example, a perhaps tenth-century CE story about the legendary poet Imru' al-Qais features him insisting that he will marry only the woman who can say which eight, four, and two are. Rather than 'fourteen', the answer is the number of teats on, respectively, a dog, a camel, and a woman. In the face of other challenges, successful prosecution of al-Qais's marriage continues to depend on the wit of his new fiancée.[16]

One of the leading exponents of the riddle in medieval Arabic was Al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122), whose Maqāmāt (Assemblies) contains several different kinds of enigmas (assemblies 3, 8, 15, 24, 29, 32, 35, 36, 42 and 44).[17] Al-Hariri built in this respect on the use of riddles in the earlier Maqamat Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhani (for example, assemblies 3, 29, 31, 35).

According to Pieter Smoor, discussing a range of ninth- to eleventh-century poets,

There is a slow but discernable development which can be traced in the Arabic riddle poem through the course of time. The earlier poets, like Ibn al-Rūmi, al-Sarī al-Raffā’ and Mutanabbī composed riddle poems of the 'narrow' kind, i.e. without the use of helpful homonyms ... Abu ’l-‘Alā’'s practise, however, tended toward the reverse: in his work 'narrow' riddles have become comparatively rare ... while homonymous riddles are quite common.[18]

It appears that the mu‘ammā form and riddles using the numerical values of letters become popular later, from perhaps the thirteenth century.[19]

Since early Arabic poetry often features rich, metaphorical description, and ekphrasis, there is a natural overlap in style and approach between poetry generally and riddles specifically;[20] literary riddles are therefore often a subset of the descriptive poetic form known as wasf.

Examples

Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhani (969–1007 CE) in the rajaz metre:

Pointed is his spearhead, sharp are his teeth,
His progeny are his helpers, dissolving union is his business.
He assails his master, clinging to his moustache;
Inserting his fangs into old and young.
Agreeable, of goodly shape, slim, abstemious.
A shooter, with shafts abundant, around the bears and the moustache.[21]

The answer is 'a comb'.

Al-Harīrī of Basra (1054–1122 CE):

Then he said 'now here is another for you, O lords of intellect, fraught with obscurity:

One split in his head it is, through whom ‘the writ’ is known, as honoured recording angels take their pride in him;
When given to drink he craves for more, as though athirst, and settles to rest when thirstiness takes hold of him;
And scatters tears about him when ye bid him run, but tears that sparkle with the brightness of a smile.

After we could not guess who whis might be, he told us he was riddling upon a reed-pen.[22]

Modern attestations

Riddles have been collected by scholars throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and we can arguably 'speak of the Arabic riddle as a discrete phenomenon'.[23] Examples of modern riddles, as categorised and selected by Chyet, are:[24]

  • Nonoppositional
    • Literal: Werqa ‘ala werqa, ma hiya? (l-beṣla) [leaf upon leaf, what is she? (an onion)] (Morocco)
    • Metaphorical: Madīnatun ḥamrā’, ǧidrānuhā ḩaḍrā’, miftāḥuḥa ḥadīd, wa-sukkānuhā ‘abīd (il-baṭṭīḩ) [a red city, its walls are green, its key is iron, and its inhabitants are black slaves (watermelon)] (Palestine)
    • Solution included in the question: Ḩiyār ismo w-aḩḍar ǧismo, Allāh yihdīk ‘alā smo (il-ḩiyār) ['Ḩiyār {='cucumber'} is its name and green its body, may God lead you to its name [=to what it is] (cucumber)] (Palestine)
  • Oppositional
    • Antithetical contradictive (only one of two descriptive elements can be true): Kebīra kēf el-fīl, u-tenṣarr fī mendīl (nāmūsīya) [big as an elephant, and folds up into a handkerchief (mosquito net)] (Libya)
    • Privational contradictive (second descriptive element denies a characteristic of the first descriptive element): Yemšī blā rās, u-yeqtel blā rṣāṣ (en-nher) [goes without a head, and kills without lead (a river)] (Algeria)
      • Inverse privational contradictive: Gaz l-wad ‘ala ržel (‘okkaz) [crossed the river on one leg (walking stick/cane)] (Morocco)
    • Causal contradictive (things don't add up as expected; a time dimension is involved): Ḩlug eš bāb, kber u-šāb, u-māt eš bāb (el-gamra) [was born a youth, grew old and white, and died a youth (the moon)] (Tunisia)
  • Contrastive (a pair of binary, non-oppositional complements contrasted with each other): mekkēn fī kakar, akkān dā ġāb, dāk ḥaḍar (iš-šams wil-gamar) [two kings on a throne, if one is absent, the other is present (the sun and the moon)] (Sudan)
  • Compound (with multiple descriptive elements, falling into different categories from those just listed): Šē yākul min ġēr fumm, in akal ‘āš, w-in širib māt (in-nār) [a thing which eats without a mouth, if it eats it lives, and if it drinks it dies (fire)] (Egypt)

Subgenres

Abyat al-ma'ani

Abyāt al-maʿānī is a technical term related to the genre of alghāz. In a chapter on alghāz, Al-Suyuti defines the genre as follows:[25]

There are kinds of puzzles that the Arabs aimed for and other puzzles that the scholars of language aim for, and also lines in which the Arabs did not aim for puzzlement, but they uttered them and they happened to be puzzling; these are of two kinds: Sometimes puzzlement occurs in them on account of their meaning, and most of abyāt al-maʿānī are of this type. Ibn Qutaybah compiled a good volume on this, and others compiled similar works. They called this kind [of poetry] abyāt al-maʿānī because it requires someone to ask about their meaning and they are not comprehended on first consideration. Some other times, puzzlement occurs because of utterance, construction or inflection (iʿrāb).

mu‘ammā

The first known exponent of the mu‘ammā form seems to have been the major classical poet Abu Nuwas,[26] though other poets are also credited with inventing the form: Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (noted for his cryptography) and Ali ibn Abi Talib.[27] The mu‘ammā is in verse, does not include an interrogatory element, and involves clues as to the letters or sounds of the word. One example of the form is a riddle on the name Aḥmad:

awwaluhu thālithu tuffāḥatin
wa-rābi‘u ’l-tuffāḥi thānīhī
Wa-awwalu ’l-miski lahū thālithun
wa-ākhiru ’l-wardi li-bāḳihī

Its first is the third of [the word] tuffāḥa (apple) = A;
and the fourth of [the word] tuffāḥ (apples) is its second = Ḥ;
and the first of [the word] misk (musk) is its third = M;
and the last of the word ward (roses) is the remainder of it = D[28]

Influence

Arabic riddle-traditions also influenced medieval Hebrew poetry.[29] One prominent Hebrew exponent of the form is the medieval Andalusian poet Judah Halevi, who for example wrote

What's slender, smooth and fine,
and speaks with power while dumb,

in utter silence kills,

and spews the blood of lambs?[30]

(The answer is 'a pen'.)

Collections and indices

  • Morgenländische Spruchweisheit: Arabische Sprichwörter und Rätsel. Aus mündlicher Überlieferung gesammelt und übtertragen, ed. and trans. by Enno Littmann, Morgenland. Darstellungen aus Geschichte und Kultur des Ostens, 29 (Leipzig, 1937)
  • S. Hillelson, 'Arabic Proverbs, Sayings, Riddles and Popular Beliefs', Sudan Notes and Records, 4.2 (1921), 76–86
  • Jeffrey Heath, Hassaniya Arabic (Mali): Poetic and Ethnographic Texts (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003), pp. 186-87.
  • A. J. Arberry, A Maltese Anthology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp. 1-37 (riddles alongside proverbs, folktales, etc., in English translation)
  • Hasan M. El-Shamy, Folk Traditions of the Arab World: A Gues to Motif Classification, 2 vols (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995)

See also

References

  1. ↑ Cf. A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), 14-18.
  2. ↑ G. J. H. van Gelder, 'lughz', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 479.
  3. ↑ G. J. H. van Gelder, 'mu‘ammā', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 534.
  4. ↑ Smoor, Pieter, 'The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma‘arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi‘ al-awzān', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283-312, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840.
  5. ↑ Smoor, Pieter, 'The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma‘arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi‘ al-awzān', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283-312 (pp. 283--84), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840.
  6. ↑ Smoor, Pieter, 'The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma‘arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi‘ al-awzān', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283-312 (p. 284), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840.
  7. ↑ Nefeli Papoutsakis, Desert Travel as a Form of Boasting: A Study of D̲ū r-Rumma's Poetry, Arabische Studien, 4 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), p. 19; cf. the 2011 article Nefeli Papoutsakis, 'Dhū l-Rumma', in Encyclopædia of Islam, THREE, ed. by Kate Fleet and others (Leiden: Brilll, 2007-), s.v. DOI:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_26011.
  8. ↑ A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), pp. 14-15.
  9. ↑ G. J. H. van Gelder, 'lughz', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 479.
  10. ↑ Nefeli Papoutsakis, Desert Travel as a Form of Boasting: A Study of D̲ū r-Rumma's Poetry, Arabische Studien, 4 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), p. 19.
  11. ↑ Nefeli Papoutsakis, Desert Travel as a Form of Boasting: A Study of D̲ū r-Rumma's Poetry, Arabische Studien, 4 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), p. 20.
  12. ↑ Nefeli Papoutsakis, 'Dhū l-Rumma', in Encyclopædia of Islam, THREE, ed. by Kate Fleet and others (Leiden: Brilll, 2007-), s.v. DOI:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_26011.
  13. ↑ Nefeli Papoutsakis, Desert Travel as a Form of Boasting: A Study of D̲ū r-Rumma's Poetry, Arabische Studien, 4 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), p. 19 fn. 83.
  14. ↑ G. J. H. van Gelder, 'lughz', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 479.
  15. ↑ Smoor, Pieter, 'The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma‘arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi‘ al-awzān', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283-312, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840.
  16. ↑ Christine Goldberg, Turandot's Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851, Garland Folklore Library, 7 (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 24-25.
  17. ↑ Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 25-30; Pieter Smoor, 'The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma‘arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi‘ al-awzān', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283-312 (p. 291), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840.
  18. ↑ Pieter Smoor, 'The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma‘arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi‘ al-awzān', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283-312 (p. 309), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840.
  19. ↑ Pieter Smoor, 'The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma‘arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi‘ al-awzān', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283-312 (pp. 309-11), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840.
  20. ↑ G. J. H. van Gelder, 'lughz', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 479.
  21. ↑ The Maqāmāt of Badiʻ al-Zamān al-Hamādhāni, trans. by W. J. Prendergast (London: Curzon Press, 1973) [first publ. 1915], p. 129 [Maqama 31].
  22. ↑ The assemblies of al-Hariri : fifty encounters with the Shaykh Abu Zayd of Seruj, trans. by Amina Shah (London: Octagon Press, 1980), p. 209. Verse translation adapted from The Assemblies of Al-Ḥarîri. Translated from the Arabic with Notes Historical and Grammatical, trans. by Thomas Chenery and F. Steingass, Oriental Translation Fund, New Series, 3, 2 vols (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1867–98), II, 116, https://archive.org/details/assembliesofalha015555mbp.
  23. ↑ Michael L. Chyet, ' "A Thing the Size of Your Palm": A Preliminary Study of Arabic Riddle Structure', Arabica, 35 (1988), 267-92 (p. 291).
  24. ↑ Michael L. Chyet, ' "A Thing the Size of Your Palm": A Preliminary Study of Arabic Riddle Structure', Arabica, 35 (1988), 267-92 (pp. 270-74).
  25. ↑ Orfali, Bilal (1 January 2012). "A Sketch Map of Arabic Poetry Anthologies up to the Fall of Baghdad". Journal of Arabic Literature. 43 (1): 29–59. doi:10.1163/157006412X629737.
  26. ↑ G. J. H. van Gelder, 'mu‘ammā', in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 534.
  27. ↑ M. Bencheneb, 'Lughz', in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, ed. by H. A. R. Gibb and others (Leiden: Brill, 1954-2009), s.v.
  28. ↑ M. Bencheneb, 'Lughz', in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, ed. by H. A. R. Gibb and others (Leiden: Brill, 1954-2009), s.v.
  29. ↑ e.g. Nehemya Aluny, 'Ten Dunash Ben Labrat's Riddles', The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Oct., 1945), pp. 141-146, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1452496; The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950–1492, ed. and trans. by Peter Cole (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 443, 530.
  30. ↑ The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950–1492, ed. and trans. by Peter Cole (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 150.
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