The Eulogy of the Prophet Mohammad in Shaghratisi’s Lamia

Undoubtedly, in the history of Islam, there are traces of eulogy of the prophet Mohammad in the poetry and prose masterpieces written by Muslim and non-Muslim literary scholars at different times and places. Among the remnant prose works from the golden age of Arabic literature in Andalusia, there are prominent samples of eulogy of the prophet, too. One of these eulogies is the ode (qasida) Shaghratisi’s Lamia which is written by the Andalusian poet, literary scholar, and jurist Abdullah ibn Yahya Shaghratisi who had a keen interest in poetry but has written prose works as well. In his famous work Lamia he has borrowed from Islamic verses and narrations and none of the issues raised in the poem are devoid of reference to Islamic history. In this ode of one hundred thirty-three verses, he portrays the prophet’s lifestyle, battles, and miracles. One of the merits of this eulogy is that, in contrast to other eulogies of that agewhich serve other poetic purposes, all verses of it are replete with rhetorical figures depicting different personal and social aspects of the prophet’s life. Interestingly, this poem, unlike other poems composed in eulogy of the Prophet in the last centuries, is bereft of any verse that directly expresses the prophet’s prophecy.The question that needs to be answered is that what thematic element is Shaghratisi’s Lamia centered on. Therefore,in this study, the main purpose is to do a deductive and statistical analysis of Shaghratisi’s poem to define the main essence of the themes of the poem and to detect its most frequent thematic element. Considering the importance of the prophet’s battles in supporting Islam and spreading its message, this issue is expected to be the most frequent in this poem. This gives Shaghratisi’s poem an epic quality which exhilarates the reader.