فن الوصف وبيانه للبلدان في العصر العباسي

Art of Description of the Countries in the Al-Abasi Era

Abstract

The definition of description in language is to mention the thing with its conditions and forms. As for terminology, description is an art of linguistic communication used to depict scenes or characters or express situations, internal emotions and feelings. It can be considered an accurate drawing of images of things using words; to convey them to the reader in a way that makes him imagine that he is seeing the described with his own eyes, not just words.  The description is considered one of the easiest and most complex ways of telling a story at the same time, as describing a specific situation makes it easier for a person to present an accurate picture to the recipient in an easier way than giving him information directly, but this may cause the describer to have difficulty in choosing influential words that reach the recipient, and convey to him what has intended accurately, which means that he needs a high ability to narrate information in an accurate and influential way and to possess sufficient knowledge that enables him to describe things as they should be.

Description in the language means "revealing and showing", and the ancients defined it as mentioning a thing with its conditions and forms. Critics and poets have given description their attention since ancient times, so they described man, his morals, nature, virtues and creation, and they also described animals, plants, land and water, and they considered the purpose of poetry to be that it reveals and depicts the condition and form of what the eye sees.

After description in Islamic and pre-Islamic literature often dealt with describing aspects of nature, and sometimes some events and wars, the Abbasid poet began to pay another attention to describing aspects of civilization in poetry in addition to nature and battles such as: palaces, life inside homes, entertainment and amusement gatherings, etc. This interest in description stemmed from the civilizational development witnessed by this era, their mixing with other nations, their creativity in construction, and the caliphs’ encouragement of poets to write poetry and grant them gifts. Among the most important poets of description in the Abbasid era are Abu Tammam, Abu Nawas, Al-Buhturi, Ibn Al-Rumi, and Al-Sanubari.

This article puts the light on Art of description in Abasid periods