Manifestations of the sublime in the Mu`allaqa of Tarafa

Abstract

The sublime is manifested in Ṭarafa’s The Muˁallaqa with its sensual and moral types. The most prominent of its sensual manifestation is in the depiction of the camel. Its moral manifestation is obvious in Ṭarafa’s situations of life and society as if Ṭarafa and his camel are twins. Together they give The Muˁallaqa its unity and cohesion. The sublime is the characteristic that distinguishes The Muˁallaqa, and it is the focus of this research. Most of the poets of the pre-Islamic era described the camel, but it appeared in Ṭarafa Muˁallaqa in a special and distinct way. The camel appeared at its beginning in thirty verses of its own. It also appeared in the scene of its barrenness in four verses, and it appeared in two verses of wisdom. These threads extending into the fabric of the poem are what gave it its unity and earned it its privacy. This unity is also supported by the manifestation of the sublime in Ṭarafa’s heroic attitudes towards two problems that the pre-Islamic society was suffering from, namely the problem of death, and the control of society itself over the individual. The research is divided into two parts: the first part deals with the sensual sublime, depicted in the camel, and the second part deals with the moral sublime, expressed in Tarafa’s attitudes towards society and life. The research is based on the concept of the sublime in Kant, Santayana, and Edmund Burke, and clarifies it through the Muˁallaqa from within. It draws on other aspects of different research methods. The research does not neglect the linking of the concept of sublime to its time and environment.