The Unseen Passage That Could Be Maqāma or Riḥla
An item writer for the literature section drafts an unseen prose excerpt for a 5-mark genre-identification question. The excerpt reads: 'حكى سالمٌ قال: خرجتُ من بلدتي طلبًا للرزقِ، فنزلتُ بقومٍ فيهم شيخٌ يتكلّمُ فيجمعُ بين الحكمةِ والطَّرَبِ. فلمّا أردتُ الرحيلَ سألني عن مالي، فأخبرتُه، فبكى ثمّ ضحكَ وقال: «الناسُ في الزمانِ كأمواجِ البحرِ: تعلو ثمّ تهبطُ، وتضحكُ ثمّ تبكي».' The marking scheme expects 'مقامة'. Two reviewers object: one says the first-person narrator and travel frame make it a رحلة; the other says the absence of a trick means it cannot be a مقامة. The excerpt has rhymed prose and a wise companion but no place names and no ruse. The writer must decide whether the item can stand as written or must be revised before it goes into the question bank.
1. Sort the excerpt's features into those diagnostic of maqāma, those shared with riḥla, and those that are neutral. Then decide whether the item has a single defensible answer.
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Diagnostic of maqāma: the framing 'حكى سالمٌ قال' (a narrator reporting a scene), the encounter with an eloquent companion, and the rhymed prose. Shared with riḥla: first-person travel, departure from home, a journey, and an encounter with people. Neutral: the wise saying itself, which could appear in a riḥla, a maqāma, or a didactic anecdote. What is missing is the maqāma's usual trickster-hero and ruse, and there are no place names or travel observations to anchor a riḥla. So the item as written does not have a single defensible answer: a reviewer can reasonably choose riḥla, and another can reject maqāma for lack of a trick. It should be revised before it enters the bank.
2. Revise the excerpt in two or three sentences so that it is unambiguously a maqāma without naming the genre. Keep the narrator and the rhymed prose.
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Revised excerpt: «حكى سالمٌ قال: خرجتُ من بلدتي طلبًا للرزقِ، فنزلتُ بقومٍ فيهم شيخٌ يتكلّمُ فيجمعُ بين الحكمةِ والطَّرَبِ. فلمّا هممتُ بالرحيلِ قال لي: «معي عقدٌ يضمنُ لك الربحَ»، فأخذَ ديناري ثمّ غابَ، فقلتُ: «هذا أوّلُ درسٍ في السوقِ».» This adds a ruse (the false contract), a duper and a duped narrator, while keeping the narrator frame and rhymed/ornate prose. The reader can now identify maqāma by the trickster episode, not merely by the saj'. The travel frame remains, but it is subordinate to the trick, so riḥla is no longer a competitive answer.
3. Explain why سجع alone cannot decide the genre, and name one feature that would distinguish maqāma from a didactic prose anecdote.
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سجع is ornate rhymed prose and appears in maqāmāt, epistles, sermons, and other adorned prose, so it cannot by itself decide genre. A didactic prose anecdote may also use a wise saying and even some parallelism. The distinguishing feature is structural: a maqāma typically has a narrator who reports an episode involving a trickster-hero, often a ruse or a scene of duping, and it is performed as an entertaining episode. A didactic anecdote aims primarily at a moral lesson and does not require a trickster or a framed narrator. Genre identification should therefore rest on the narrative frame plus the trick, with saj' as supporting style.