Rethinking Poetry as (Anti-Crusader) Propaganda: Licentiousness and Cross-Confessional Patronage in the Ḫarīdat al-qaṣr

Abstract

It is sometimes assumed that the poetry of the Crusader period was part of a concerted propaganda effort to rouse Muslims to fight and to legitimate Muslim rulers in the eyes of other Muslims by portraying them as ascetic, Sunni revivalists focused on Jihad. Based on samples from the Ḫarīdat al-qaṣr wa-ǧarīdat ahl al-ʿaṣr, a massive 6th/12th-century adab anthology by ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, this article argues for a different understanding of both the content and the circulation of this period’s poetry. I show that poetry was not addressed to a “public,” but rather was a form of elite communication in which social identity was performed, negotiated, and consolidated. Furthermore, ʿImād al-Dīn’s anthology does not marginalize Shiʿite voices or insist on portraying rulers as ascetics. I trace the origins of these assumptions and show that levity, licentiousness, and Shiʿites were all celebrated in the poetic discourses of the 6th/12th century.