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Persian Influences and the Transformation of Adab
The word adab simply means norms of conduct or customs including good etiquette, deemed praiseworthy in the medieval Muslim world. The word adab evolved to become a broad term meaning a sub-culture or a “taste culture” of a certain social strata of the Muslim community. ... The Umayyad court in Damascus was the scene of the development of adab literature. In its inception this literature was created to serve the practical end of educating the growing class of government ministers in the Arabic language, manners and deportment, history, and statecraft. ... These influences are what helped transform and broaden the notion of adab.
In classical Arabic usage, in the Abbasid period, adab is a concept with many applications and shades of meaning. ... The socio-ethical side is primary and active, where adab designates a wide range of social and ethical virtues, like good manners, tact, grace, indulgence towards friends, refined taste, courage, erudition and literary skill. The literary side is a secondary one and passive, where adab signifies literary production and scholarship that deal with or have a connection to these socio-ethical subjects.
Adab, thus, is education and upbringing, high moral principles and correct behavior, scholarship and knowledge, all at once, but is also used to designate literary works of a certain kind. However, this kind is not easy to define and Bonebakker who explores the concept in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature questions the validity of the current definitions used by most literary historians of adab as a literary genre.
Approximate Word count = 1266
Approximate Pages = 5.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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