Le Diwan D'Abu Firas Al-Hamadani

Abstract

This book is a critical scholarly edition of the poetry of Abu Firas al-Hamadani (932–968), the Abbasid-era poet and prince. Prepared by Sami Dahan, it is among the earliest modern academic attempts to establish a reliable text of Abu Firas’s diwan based on manuscript evidence and classical literary sources.

Dahan’s methodology relies on collecting different manuscript readings, comparing them with early Arabic sources, and selecting the most authoritative versions of the poems while noting significant textual variants. The edition occasionally provides brief explanations of difficult vocabulary and historical references to clarify the poetic context.

The diwan includes Abu Firas’s most famous poems, especially the Rumiyyat (prison poems), which reflect his captivity in Byzantine lands and express themes of pride, loyalty, longing, and personal dignity. It also contains poems of heroism, self-glorification, lament, and praise, revealing both the emotional depth and the aristocratic ethos of the poet.