Extract from the Encyclopaedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition v.1.

AB TAMM$M \abb b. Aws

, Arabic poet and anthologist. According to his son Tammm he was born in the year 188/804; according to an account deriving from himself, in the year 190/806 (Abr, 272-3) and in the town of sim between Damascus and Tiberias. He died according to his son in 231/845, according to others 2 Muarram 232/29 Aug. 846 (ibid.). His father was a Christian by name s (Thaddeus, Theodosius?) who kept a wine-shop in Damascus. The son altered the name of his father to Aws (Abr, 246) and invented for himself a pedigree connecting him with the tribe of ayyi". He was mocked on the score of this false [I 153b] pedigree in satirical verses (Abr, 235-8); later, however, the pedigree appears to have found acceptance, and Ab Tammm is therefore frequently referred to as "the ayyite" or "the great ayyite". He spent his youth as a weaver's assistant in Damascus (Ibn #Askir, iv, 19). Subsequently he went to Egypt where at first he earned his living by selling water in the Great Mosque, but he also found opportunity to study Arabic poetry and its rules. The exact chronology of his life is difficult to reconstruct, at all events until the happenings mentioned in his poetry and the biography of the men eulogised by him are accurately established. According to one tradition he composed his first panegyrics in Damascus for Mu. b. al-ahm, brother of the poet #Al b. al-ahm (al-Muwaa, 324). This, however, can hardly be correct, as this personage was only in 225 appointed governor of Damascus by al-Mu#taim (all Mardam Bek, in the preface to the Dwn of #Al b. al-ahm, 4). According to the poet's own account (Abr, 121), he composed his first poem in Egypt for the tax-collector #Ayy b. Lah#a (al-Bad#, 181). He was, however, disappointed by him and repaid him, as often in similar circumstances, with lampoons (cf. al-Bad#, 174 ff.). Al-Kind (Governors and Judges of Egypt, ed. Guest, 181, 183, 186, 187) quotes some verses of Ab Tammm referring to events in Egypt in the years 211-4. From Egypt Ab Tammm returned to Syria. At this time are to be placed, apparently, the encomia and lampoons on Abu 'l-Mu Ms b. Ibrhm al-Rfi. When al-Ma"mn returned from his campaign against the Byzantines (215-8), Ab Tammm, clad in the bedouin attire beloved by him all his life, offered him a ada, which however was not to the caliph's taste, since he took exception to the fact that a bedouin should compose urban poetry (Ab Hill al-#Askar, Dwn al-Ma#n, ii, 120). At this time the young Butur perhaps came into contact with him in \im (Abr, 66, cf. 105). Ab Tammm first rose to fame and became generally known under al-Mu#taim. On the destruction of Amorium in the year 223/838 (cf. #ammriyya) the Mu#tazilite chief Amad b. Ab Du"d [q.v.] sent him before the caliph in Smarr. The caliph recalled the harsh voice of the poet, which he had heard in Maa, and granted Ab Tammm an audience only after making sure that he had with him a rw, or reciter, with a pleasant voice (Abr, 143-4). Then began Ab Tammm's career as the most celebrated panegyrist of his time. In addition to the caliph he eulogised in his adas the highest dignitaries of his epoch. One of these was Ibn Ab Du"d, whom, however, he offended temporarily through a poem in which the South Arabs (to whom the tribe of ayyi" belonged) were greatly extolled to the disadvantage of the North Arabs (from which the chief claimed descent). An apologetic ada had to be addressed to the patron before his reinstatement was effected (Abr, 147 ff.). Other personalities eulogised by him were, for example, the general Ab Sa#d Mu. b. Ysuf al-Marwaz, who had distinguished himself in the war against Byzantium and in the operations against the urramite Bbak, and his son Ysuf, killed by the Armenians in 237 while governor of Armenia; Ab Dulaf al-|sim al-#Il, d. 225; Is b. Ibrhm al-Mu#ab, police chief (ib al-isr) of Baghdad from 207 to 235. \asan b. Wahb, secretary to the wazr Mu. b. #Abd al-Malik al-Zayyt was a particular admirer of Ab Tammm. Ab Tammm also travelled several times to visit [I 154a] provincial governors, for example the governor of abal, Mu. b. al-Hayam (Abr, 188 f.), lid b. Yazd b. Mazyad al-aybn, governor of Armenia under al-Wi, d. 230 (Abr, 188 ff.) and others. His journey to #Abd Allh b. hir in Npr is the most celebrated. #Abd Allh did not come up to his expectations in rewarding him, and the cold climate did not suit the poet, so that he quickly retraced his steps. He was held up by snow in Haman, and made good use of his time in compiling with the aid of the library of Abu
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Extract from the Encyclopaedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition v.1.1

'l-Waf b. Salama the most celebrated of his anthologies, the \amsa. Some two years before his death, \asan b. Wahb found him the postmastership of Mosul. The philosopher al-Kind is supposed to have predicted an early death for him as the result of over-exertion of his intellectual faculties, iddat al-fikr (Ibn allikn, apparently after al-l, where, however, the appropriate passage is lacking, cf. Abr, 231-2). It was in Mosul that Ab Tammm died. Ab Nahal b. \umayd al-s, brother of the Muammad who fell in 214 in the campaign against Bbak, had erected over his grave a dome, visited by Ibn allikn. Ab Tammm was dark, tall, dressed in bedouin fashion, spoke extremely pure Arabic, having at the same time a most unattractive voice and suffering from a slight impediment of speech; he accordingly had his poetry recited by his rw li (Abr, 210). Ab Tammm's adas treat of important historical events, such as the conquest of Amorium, the campaign against Bbak and his execution (223/837-8), the execution of Afn (226/840), whom he himself had previously eulogised, and many others. In certain particulars the adas supplement the historians (cf. al-abar's The reign of al-Mu#taim, transl. and annot. by E. Marin, New Haven 1951, index, and M. Canard, Les allusions a la guerre byzantine chez les poetes Ab Tammm et Butur, in A. A. Vassiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, I, La dynastie d'Amorium, Bruxelles 1935, 397-403). Even in Ab Tammm's lifetime opinions were divided upon the aesthetic merit of his poetry. The poet Di#bil, held in awe by reason of his sharp tongue, asserted that one third of his poetry was plagiarized, one third bad, one third good (Abr, 244). His pupil al-Butur, who held him in the greatest respect, thought Ab Tammm's best verse better than his own best, his bad verse worse than his own bad verse (Abr, 67). The poet #Al b. al-ahm (d. 249; Abr, 61-2) was a friend and admirer of Ab Tammm. From him originates the account of Ab Tammm's first entry into the poets' hall (ubbat al-u#ar") in the mosque of Badd (Ta"r Badd, viii, 249, after al-Mu#f b. Zakariyy"; Dwn#Al b. al-ahm, intr., 6-7). Long after the poet's death writings were penned both in praise of him and against him; in these works his literary "thefts" also were discussed. Abu l-#Abbs Amad b. #Ubayd Allh al-|urabull wrote against him (al-Muwzana, 56), in his favour Ab Bakr Muammad al-l, whose Abr Ab Tammm is at once the oldest and the most circumstantial source for the life of the poet. To his defenders must be added in addition al-Marz (d. 421) who wrote a Kitb al-Intir min alamat Ab Tammm (cf. Oriens, 1949, 268). The Abu 'l-\asan #Al al-urn (d. 366/976-7) in his Wasa bayn al-Mutanabb wa umih, ayd 1331, 58 ff., and al-$mid (d. 381) in his Muwzana bayn al-"iyyayn Ab Tammm wa 'l-Butur, Istanbul 1287 (Turkish transl. by Mehmed Weled, Istanbul 1311) weigh [I 154b] up his merits and demerits. Al-Marzubn (d. 384) in al-Muwaa, Cairo 1343, 303, 329, brings into prominence rather his weak points. Al-arf al-Murta in his al-ihb fi 'l-ayb wa 'l-abb, Istanbul 1302, defends the poet against al-$mid's strictures. The modern reader will follow the judgement of the old critics. Ab Tammm's adas contain, side by side with brilliant conceits which have established the poet's fame, much that is unpleasant. He has a penchant not only for queer words but also for artificial, frequently tortuous, sentence construction, the understanding of which much exercised the Arabic commentators. Unhappy personifications of abstract ideas, affected, far-fetched and unconvincing metaphors harass the reader often for many verses at a stretch till he stumbles on an excellent poetical figure. Added to this is an unfortunate tendency towards paronomasia and subtly-reasoned antithesis, to which he all too frequently sacrifices the clarity and attractiveness of the phrase (cf. #Abd al-|hir al-urn, Asrr al-Bala, ed. Ritter, 15). The Dwn was collected by al-l (alphabetically), by #Al b. \amza al-Ifahn (under subjects), also handed on by al-Sukkar (Oriens, 1949, 268) and others. Unsatisfactory editions Cairo 1299, Beyrut 1889, 1905, 1923, 1934. Index by Margoliouth in JRAS, 1905, 763-82. No edition exists as yet of the numerous comtaries, absolutely indispensable for the understanding of his poetry, by al-l, al-Marz, al-Tibrz, Ibn al-Mustawf (Abr, intr. 8; H. Ritter, Philologika, xiii, in Oriens, 1949, 266-9; \ alfa, under Dwn Ab Tammm, and Ism#l Paa, ^ al-Maknn fi 'l-ayl #al Kaf al-unn, i, Istanbul 1945, 422). [The commentary of al-Tibrz is in course of publication in Cairo;
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Extract from the Encyclopaedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition v.1.1

vol. i, 1952.] Ab Tammm collected in addition several anthologies of poetry. The best known is a collection of fragments (mua#t) by less known poets, which he made during his involuntary halt in Haman, the \amsa. Edited with the commentary of al-Tibrz by G. Freytag, Hamasae Carmina cum Tebrisii scholiis, Bonn 1828, Latin transl. 1847-51, reprinted with all the errors Bl 1284, Cairo 1938. On the numerous commentaries see Brockelmann, i, 134 ff.; H. Ritter, Philologika, iii, in Oriens, 1949, 246-61; \ alfa, s.v. \amsa, and Ism#l Paa, ^ al-Maknn, i, 422. Of the other anthologies there are preserved in manuscript the \amsa al-ur or al-Waiyyt (see Oriens, 1949, 261-2), not to be identified with any of the Itiyrt mentioned by al-$mid; and Itiyr al-u#ar" al-Ful in Mashhad (see MMIA, xxiv, 274). We know only the names of the remainder: al-Itiyrt min i#r al-u#ar" wa Mad al-ulaf" wa A aw"izihim (Fihrist, 165, Ma#hid al-Tan, 18); al-Itiyrt min A#r al-|ab"il (Fihrist) = al-Itiyr al-|ab"il al-Akbar and al-Itiyr al-|ab"il (Muwzana, 23); Itiyr al-Mua#t, beginning with azal (ib.); al-Itiyr min A#r al-Mudan (ib.). Also the Na"iarr wa 'l-Aal, ed. Salhani, Beyrout 1922, derives from him. (H. Ritter) Ab Bakr Mu. b. Yay al-l, Abr Ab Tammm, ed. all Mamd #Askir, Mu. #Abduh #Azzm, Nar al-Islm al-Hnd, Cairo 1937 Nar al-Islm, Die Abr ber Ab Tammm von a-l, Diss. Breslau 1940 An, xv, 100-8 al-ab al-Badd, Ta"r Badd, viii, 248-63 Ibn #Askir, al-Ta"r al-Kabr (Badrn), iv, 18-26 Ibn al-Anbr [I 155a] Nuzha, 213-6 Ibn Nubta, Sar al-#Uyn, Cairo, Mab. M. #Al ubay, 205-10 al#Abbs, Ma#hid al-Tan, Cairo, 18-20 Ibn allikn, no. 146 Ysuf al-Bad#, Hibat al-Ayym fm yata#alla bi-Ab Tammm, Cairo 1934 #Abd al-|dir al-Badd, iznat al-Adab, 1347, i, 322-3 Brockelmann, I, 12, 83-5, S I, 39-40, 134-7, 940, III, 1194 O. Rescher, Abriss, Stuttgart 1933, ii, 103-81.

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