Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

A Structural-Functional Analysis of the Poetics of Arabic Qaṣīdah: An Ethnolinguistic Study of Three Qaṣīdahs on Colonial Conquest of Africa by Al-ḥājj ῾Umar b. Abī Bakr b. ῾Uthmān Krachi (1858-1934)

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dc.contributor Al-Ani, Salman H
dc.contributor Hanson, John H
dc.creator Gibrill, Muhammed Al-Munir
dc.date 2015-04-02T07:23:08Z
dc.date 2015-04-02T07:23:08Z
dc.date 2015-03
dc.date 2015
dc.date.accessioned 2023-02-21T11:19:32Z
dc.date.available 2023-02-21T11:19:32Z
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/2022/19762
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/252997
dc.description Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, 2015
dc.description This study examines three poems composed by a West African Muslim scholar known by the name Alḥājj 'Umar b. Abi Bakr b. 'Uthman Krachi (1858-1934). He was born in the Northern Nigerian city of Kano where he completed his education. He then settled in the mid-Volta region of present-day Ghana to teach, write and serve as community leader. This moment coincided with intensive colonial invasions into the region and Alḥājj 'Umar viewed it all with mixed feelings of presentiment and hope. Within a period of seven years, he composed the three poems which came to be known as his "colonial poems" to give account of the historical clashes between the European forces and Africans that culminated into the official establishment of colonial administration across the region. The first two poems were composed in Arabic in 1899 and 1900 respectively, while the last one was composed in 1907 in Hausa Ajami (the native language of the poet). The three poetic narratives are considered from a structural-functional analytic perspective derived from the theoretical formulations of van Gennep and Victor Turner regarding the ritual transformational tripartite process of the Rite of Passage. Following Professor Suzanne Stetkevych's pioneering study of the Arabic qaṣīdah, 'Umar's qaṣīdah have been examined as representing the trajectory of a life-changing ritual transformation in the poet's world view (as well as Africa generally) motivated by the European colonial invasion of Africa from 1884 to around 1910. The tripartite structures of the poems (the nasib or prelude, the rahil or journey and the ghard or closure) are analyzed on the basis of the tripartite structure of the rite of passage: pre-liminal/separation, liminal/margin, post-liminal/re-aggregation that correspond to the symbolic ritual process of the poet's psychological transformation.
dc.language en
dc.publisher [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University
dc.subject Africa
dc.subject Colonialism
dc.subject Ethnolinguistics
dc.subject Poetics
dc.subject Qasidah
dc.subject Structural-functional
dc.subject Middle Eastern literature
dc.subject Literature
dc.title A Structural-Functional Analysis of the Poetics of Arabic Qaṣīdah: An Ethnolinguistic Study of Three Qaṣīdahs on Colonial Conquest of Africa by Al-ḥājj ῾Umar b. Abī Bakr b. ῾Uthmān Krachi (1858-1934)
dc.type Doctoral Dissertation


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