Document Type
Article
Peer Reviewed
1
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between masculinity and literary expressions of grief in premodern Islamic cultures based on “The Book on Women Mourners, Condolences, and Elegies,” from the adab anthology, al- ‘Iqd al-farīd (The Unique Necklace), compiled by the Cordovan belletrist Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih (d. 940). While Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih’s selection of literary specimens by female authors has been studied in depth, the far more numerous examples of male-authored bereavement literature have not been analyzed in detail. Hence this article has two aims. First, it will examine the relatively neglected genres of Arab-Islamic bereavement literature featuring grieving men from a gender perspective. Second, it will assess whether there is a correlation between the gender of the author and/or of the deceased and the literary genre of expression. The analysis combines methodologies from gender studies and the history of the emotions. The results of this investigation challenge the gender oppositional thesis of male restraint and female unrestrained weeping in matters of grief in premodern Arab-Islamic cultures.
Acknowledgements
Research for this article was conducted within the framework of the research project, “Writing Religious, Transcultural, and Gender Identities and Alterities in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean,” financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Universidades, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and the European Union, ref. no. PGC2018-093472-B-C32 (2019–2022). The revisions and final publication were completed within the framework of the research project, “Intersections of Religion and Gender in Transcultural Contexts: Premodern Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Iberia and the Mediterranean,” financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and the European Union, ref. no. PID2022-137836NB-C32, MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and “EDRF, A Way of Making Europe” (2023–2026).
Keywords
Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih, al-‘Iqd al-farīd, gender and Islam, Islamic masculinities, gender and grief in Islam, adab literature, Arabic elegiac poetry, Arabic bereavement literature
Recommended Citation
Jones, Linda G. "The Masculinization of Grief in Arabic Adab Literature: Ibn ‘Abd al-Rabbih’s al-‘Iqd al-farīd." Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality 61, No. 2 (2026)
