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Ibn Daniyal (1248 – 1310) was an Egyptian ophthalmologist, dramatist, and poet. According to many contemporary theatre scholars, he is often hailed as the “Arab Aristophanes.”  Most famous for his shadow plays (The Shadow Spirit, The Amazing Preacher and the Stranger, and The Love-Stricken One and the Lost One Who Inspires Passion), Ibn Daniyal also wrote for the puppet theatre and created a number of poems known for their eroticism and scatology. Ibn Daniyal’s frequent use of erotic, often referred to as mujun, verses have led many scholars to label him, as Li Guo at the University of Notre Dame has, the “Libertine Poet.”

Ibn Daniyal was born in Mosul in what is present day Iraq in 1248. During the 1250s and early 60s, Mosul was under a dire threat from the fast-growing Mongol empire under Genghis Kahn. Realizing this threat, there was a mass exodus of Mosul citizens to elsewhere in the Middle East. While it is not exactly known when Ibn Daniyal left Mosul for Cairo, some scholars, including Safi Mahfouz and Marvin Carlson, believe he likely left in the 1261 migration when he was 13 years old. The city of Mosul fell to the Mongols in 1262.

Shortly after arriving in Cairo, Ibn Daniyal started a career as an ophthalmologist, or eye doctor. Simultaneously with his medical work, Ibn Daniyal started to develop his skills as a poet and garnered quite a reputation for his wit. Some of his earliest work is estimated to have been produced around 1267. They consisted of several of verse meditations on his occupation.

Due to the conservative politics and culture sweeping Cairo around this time, much of Ibn Daniyal’s work was in response to the rigidity and suppression they created. This can be found in the first play in Ibn Daniyal’s trilogy, The Shadow Spirit, where the opening scenes paint a portrait of the current state of affairs in the city at that time, as well as the new Sultan’s obsession with stomping out debaucheries wherever they could be found. This kind of resistance to authority can also be found in Ibn Daniyal’s poetry which, due to the higher respect Arab culture often placed on poetry than theater, Ibn S dedicated more of his craft to writing poems. So much so that sections of his plays are considered separate poems in their own right. Parts of Elegy to Satan is one such example.

In an effort to receive higher financial stability, Ibn Daniyal sought out affluent sponsors. Due to new leadership in Cairo and a better environment for artists, Ibn Daniyal was able to achieve the sought-after patronage of Sultan al-Salih Ali Ibn Qalawun. Upon the untimely death of Qalawun in 1288, Ibn Daniyal continued his work as a court poet and jester under Sultan al-Ashraf Salah al-Din Khalil. Due to al-Din Khalil’s military conquests against the Mongols, Ibn Daniyal found himself sponsored for the first time by a ruling Sultan with growing influence, and thus entered, according to scholars Mahfouz and Carlson, his “peak as a poet during these years.”

Unfortunately, Khalil was assassinated in the fourth year of his reign, thus ushering in a very unstable political period in Egypt. As a result, it was not feasible for Ibn Daniyal to maintain a sustainable court position. Nonetheless, he continued to write darker and more satiric poetry for less affluent sponsors, including other politicians, businessman, and faith leaders. The political instability lasted in Egypt until Ibn Daniyal’s death in 1310.

IBN DANIYAL’S WORK

According to many scholars, Ibn Daniyal’s most important literary work are his three shadow plays, written in the final years of the thirteenth century. Ahmed Shafik in his article, Ibn Daniyal’s Shadow Plays in Egypt:  The Character of Tayf Al-Khayal, he goes on to state that “The first of these three plays, Tayf al-Khayal (The Shadow Spirit), is the longest and the most developed with regard to plot and characterization.”  Following a brief prologue given by the Presenter, Tayf al-Khayal appears on the stage and describes his desire to repent after living a sinful life. Upon coming to Cairo and meeting his friend, Prince Wisal (who brags about his sexual exploits in a lengthy poem), Tayf al-Khayal finds himself caught up in the Prince’s surprising and comical attempts to get married and lead a conventional life.

The second play of these three plays, The Amazing Preacher and the Stranger, has a simpler structure, in the opinion of Mahfouz and Carlson, in comparison to the other two. In his article, Three Shadow Plays by Muhammad Ibn Daniyal, Everett K. Rowson, says, “In the second, Ajib wa-Gharib, we are offered a parade of street entertainers, charlatans, and other dubious types; here the obscenity quotient is lower.”  Nonetheless, we are given glimpses into the morality of the inhabitants of Cairo after dark. A homosexual love affair consumes the third play, The Love-Stricken One and the Lost One Who Inspires Passion, and again, according to Mr. Rowson, the play “Concludes with a banquet attended by representatives of every conceivable sexual vice.”

Ibn Daniyal’s obsession with scatology, an interest in excrement and secretion, has led much of his poetry to be thought of as mujun, or in other words, “licentious (lustful) verse.”  It is often thought that, due in part to the graphic nature of the poetry and the religious piety of the medieval times and historical periods going forward, that Ibn Daniyal’s work has been both censored and avoided altogether. The questions as to how filthy a poet can be persist to this day. Yet it may be precisely this boldness to push the boundaries of acceptable literary content and form that make many scholars, including Li Guo, to consider Ibn Daniyal, “Arguably one of the finest, and most exciting, poets in the history of medieval Arabic literature.“  In his article, The Devil’s Advocate, Mr. Guo provides a poem as an example of Ibn Daniyal’s response to the religious fevered Mamluk crackdown in Cairo. Titled Qasidah No. 71 in the Mukhtar anthology, an excerpt from the poem listed in Mr. Guo’s article is as follows:

(*Warning.  The following is graphic.)

17. “Praise be to the One who created in her pure cheeks,

             white with red on top.

18. “Come on, enjoy, take your fill,

             let no reveler stay hard!”

19. Every bugger craves

             the beefcake in the tablecloth/anus.

20. When a fart is wafted his way,

             he would say, “O, fragrant incense!” 

21. Every adulterer sees in whore’s piss

             a charm guaranteeing his health.

IBN DANIYAL’S WORLD

In medieval Cairo, the sultan resided at the top of the social and political structure, and around the time that Ibn Daniyal arrived in Egypt, this social and political structure was experiencing a monumental shift. Baybars, a powerful warrior who defeated both King Louis IX of France and the Mongol general, Hugelu, thus ending the Fourth Crusade and halting the Mongol invasion into the Middle East, married the widowed queen of Egypt and initiated a brand-new dynasty that wasn’t Arab called the Mamluks, which would rule Egypt for centuries. With the Mongol conquest of Baghdad and Damascus, Cairo was left as the commerce and intellectual hub of the Arab world. With the ascendance of the new sultan, Baybars, Cairo’s reputation as the Middle East’s cosmopolitan city of its time continued.

In order for Baybars to prove himself as equally as good a government administrator as a military leader, he ventured on a campaign to, in his view, improve the city by implementing strict measures to limit the drinking and sex trade. The favorability of Baybars among Cairo’s bohemian community, of which Ibn Daniyal would initially settle, tanked. It is within this backdrop of decadent crackdown that Ibn Daniyal’s early work would start to take shape.

Upon Baybars’s death in 1277, power didn’t start to settle again until Baybars’s son’s father-in-law, Qalawun, became sultan. During his tenure, the arts once again started to flourish in Cairo. Many singers and poets were invited to perform at court, of which Ibn Daniyal was not only one of them, but essentially became the court poet of the time. Despite this privileged position, however, it was perhaps the era of political turmoil following the assassination of Qalawun’s successor, Khalil al-Ashaf, that led to some of Ibn Daniyal’s most prolific work. It was shortly after leaving court that Ibn Daniyal was approached by a producer of a puppet theater who summoned him to write three new plays for him. These plays had to be, according to Marvin Carlson in his article, The Arab Aristophanes, of “real literary and artistic merit.”

THE ARAB ARISTOPHANES

It is these three shadow plays that appear to form the spine of Ibn Daniyal’s literary legacy. It has been said by many scholars that Ibn Daniyal has only come to their attention upon the edition of these three plays appearing in Arabic in 1992. Since that time, Ibn Daniyal has often been compared to the ancient Greek playwright, Aristophanes. So much so that some scholars, notably Marvin Carlson, has titled Ibn Daniyal as the “The Arab Aristophanes.”  This is due supposedly to the similarities in structure between the Ibn Daniyal shadow plays and the Aristophanic comedy. Mr. Carlson in his article, The Arab Aristophanes, goes on to say:

“''The opening of the play is a monologue or dialogue that introduces the subject matter. The next element is the entrance song of the chorus. The parados is followed by a set in which the chorus supports or opposes the concerns or project of the hero. Next comes a set of balanced or symmetrical scenes, often in the form of an agon or parabasis, or both. The contest, or agon, pits two characters against each other in a conflict that anticipates the conclusion of the action. In the parabasis, normally at the middle of the play, the main actors leave the stage, and the chorus steps out of the play to address the audience directly. A series of episodes follow, short scenes involving only one or two minor characters each, usually showing the effects of the outcome of the agon. Finally comes the departure song of the chorus, the exodus, with a mood of celebration often involving revelry and a joyous marriage, or both''.”

Mr. Carlson and other scholars have described the effects of the Byzantine Empire on medieval Egypt, both economically and culturally. It is thought that this Byzantine influence, often flavored by the work of the Ancient Greeks, helps explain the apparent similarities between Aristophanes and Ibn Daniyal. During his years at court, it makes sense to think that Ibn Daniyal was exposed to the works of the classic Greek playwrights, and thus was subsequently influenced by their structure and sense of humor. Diplomatic relations and elaborate libraries were also in existence at the time, furthering the argument for cultural fusion and exposure.

Yet other analysts argue that while it is important to take note of potential literary influences, directly linking Ibn Daniyal to a more western writer is not entirely necessary. Medieval Arab literature and theater is rich and complex enough to stand on its own, and the attempt to always connect an artist back to Europe restricts our vision to experience each artist of the world on their own merit. It is at times the conscious or subconscious attempts to always look at the performing arts through Western eyes that possibly has led to the overlooking of the works of Ibn Daniyal for almost 800 years. Who knows who else we may be missing?

Peer Review
This is a great foundation to this article. The leading paragraph gives us a brief understanding of the life of Ibn Daniyal but does not set up the article in a way that lets us understand what will be covered in the article. I believe the headings could be worded differently so that is highlighted in a more scholarly way. There is a lack of sourcing in this article and other then in the section about Arab Aristophanes there isn't much reference to where you received your information from. The article does not present itself as biased but some of the phrasing could subject the article to be marked as biased rather than comprehensive to the subject. Your writing is clear and understandable but refrain from using rhetoric that exceeds the 'encyclopedia' like scope like "Who knows who else we may be missing?" that adds a personal concern from the author which is not neccessary for the article. The article is relevant. Although, I know these words are not the authors own, I would stay away from including phrases like “Arguably one of the finest, and most exciting, poets in the history of medieval Arabic literature.“  to not present a biased opinion in the article. As I stated before, the article is a good foundation and can't wait to see the finished published product ~