Jmhillor pre-Islamic qaxldah. The movement of the poem as such establishes
a form that answers to the poetics of the period. This form indicates a poem’s
canonicity, and its empowered presence in social and moral life. The poems
as cited by Suzanne Stetkevych offer themselves smoothly to this argument,
especially as she combines this tripartite movement with the role of the poem
as in Marcel Mauss’ rituals of exchange (Ibid. 201–07). The poem as canon
has the power to legitimize authority that patrons seek. No matter what
forms authority takes, the need for poetic allegiance remains as acute and
urgent as long as power structures feel the need. In an example from al-Andalus
cited by the author, a poet neglects this contract at one’s peril, for failure to see
into the time-honored qaxldahpolitics only must signal impending failure and
collapse. As Sulaymmn Ibn al->akam Ibn Sulaymmn’s behavior shows, “failure to
complete this contractual ritual... signals the collapse of Arabo-Islamic culture”
(The Poetics of Islamic Legitamcy281).^7 There are abundant examples of recogni-
tion of this role, and the writer applies them for comparison and contrast. The
need is reciprocal between poets and patrons, and failure on either’s part could
lead to disorder. Yet to develop the argument only within Arnold van Gennep’s
tripartite movement toward co-optation and integration may not justify the
poets’ overt call for status, recognition, and reward. Here, Marcel Mauss offers
help in explaining the ritual of exchange, for both patron and poet are under the
same obligation of gift rituals. The ceremonial presentation of the poem calls for
the conferral of the reward. The poem raises the poet to the status of the patron
and justifies, symbolically and materially, the poet’s closeness to the patron.
Suzanne Stetkevych gives a number of examples to demonstrate this reciprocity.
In pre-Islamic as in Islamic poetry, reciprocity works within this dialect.
Especially in the case of al-Mutanabbl, this ritual assumes greater proportions as
concomitant with the poets’ claims of magnanimity and manliness (Ibid. 201).
Poetics of legitimacy in context
The implications of ritual exchange are of so much cultural and social weight
because of the qaxldah’s legitimizing power, which is closely associated with
the role of the poet in pre-Islamic society. With this understanding, poetry is
no less needed in Islamic times. Using Ka‘b Ibn Zuhayr’s “Su‘md Has
Departed,” Suzanne Stetkevych argues that the address to the Prophet (dated
9 H/ 630 CE) embodies not only a personal conversion, but also a whole soci-
ety and tradition that were “co-opted” by Islam (Ibid. 49). Transmuting the
qaxldahcodes and rituals to Islam, and legitimizing these, too, in an address
to the Prophet, the qaxldahstructure assumes legitimacy and becomes viable
for further use. The idea is ingenious as it runs counter to one-sided readings
of Qur’mnic positions regarding poets, not poetry. The “Su‘md Has Departed,”
was the poet’s own presentation and gift, his conversion and supplication,
which were received with no less a gift than the Prophet’s mantle. In the
writer’s words, “thus we witness in the qaxldahthe Islamic cooptation of
CONCLUSION: DEVIATIONAL AND REVERSAL POETICS