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Muwashshah
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Muwashshah (Arabic: مُوَشَّح muwaššaḥ 'girdled'; plural مُوَشَّحَات muwaššaḥāt; also تَوْشِيْح tawšīḥ 'girdling,' pl. تَوَاشِيْح tawāšīḥ) is a strophic poetic form that developed in al-Andalus in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. The muwaššaḥ, embodying the Iberian rhyme revolution, was the major Andalusi innovation in Arabic poetry,[1] and it was sung and performed musically. The muwaššaḥ features a complex rhyme and metrical scheme usually containing five aghṣān (أَغْصَان 'branches'; sing. غُصْن ghuṣn), with uniform rhyme within each strophe, interspersed with asmāṭ (أَسْمَاط 'threads for stringing pearls'; sing. سِمْط simṭ) with common rhyme throughout the song, as well as a terminal kharja (خَرْجَة 'exit'), the song's final simṭ, which could be in a different language.[2] Sephardic poets also composed muwaššaḥāt in Hebrew, sometimes as contrafacta imitating the rhyme and metrical scheme of a particular poem in Hebrew or in Arabic. This poetic imitation, called muʿāraḍa (مُعَارَضَة 'contrafaction'), is a tradition in Arabic poetry.
The kharja, or the markaz (مَـْركَز 'center') of the muwaššaḥ, its final verses, can be in a language that is different from the body; a muwaššaḥ in literary Arabic might have a kharja in vernacular Andalusi Arabic or in a mix of Arabic and Andalusi Romance, while a muwaššaḥ in Hebrew might contain a kharja in Arabic, Romance, Hebrew, or a mix.
The muwaššaḥ musical tradition can take two forms: the waṣla of the Mashriq and the Andalusi nubah of the Maghrib.[3]
- ^ Reynolds, Dwight F. (2022), Sykäri, Venla; Fabb, Nigel (eds.), "Rhyme in Arabic Oral Poetry", Rhyme and Rhyming in Verbal Art, Language, and Song, vol. 14, Finnish Literature Society, pp. 47–62, ISBN 978-951-858-587-2, retrieved 2025-01-11
- ^ Rosen, Tova (2000-08-31), "The muwashshah", The Literature of Al-Andalus, Cambridge University Press, pp. 163–189, doi:10.1017/chol9780521471596.010, ISBN 978-0-521-47159-6, retrieved 2021-06-16
- ^ Touma (1996), p. 71
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