FROM THE HISTORY OF ARABIC LITERATURE IN THE OTTOMAN PERIOD. SA’ID AL-MINDASI (1583–1766)

Abstract

The Arabic literature from the period of the Ottoman Empire’s rule over the Middle East and Maghreb is not well known and poorly investigated, which in consequence leads to a popular suggestiong about cetain cultural gap in the development of the Arabic-Muslin civilization between XVI and XIX century. This paper is an attempt to fill this painful gap. It is devoted to the writings of Sa’id al-Mindasi, one of the greatest Arabic poets of Algeria at the turn of the XVII century. The first and the second parts of the paper give a general description of Algeria and its literature under the Ottoman rule. Part three is devoted to Al-Mindasi himself and his writings in the Arabic literary language and a specific form of the written language from that period, which is positioned between the literary and the dialectical language. This kind of works is known by the name of malhun. In the context of malhun, special emphasis has been put on a vast Al-Mindasi’s poem entitled Al-Aqiqa, which to this day is one of the most popular Maghrebian panegryics in honor of the Prophet Muhammad.