Fatımîler Döneminde İsmailî Terimlerin Arap Şiirindeki Yeri

Abstract

Poetry and literature, like other scholarly disciplines, have always had devoted adherents in every society. In the Arabic intellectual tradition, both before and after the advent of Islam, poetry—and genres such as the qasīda, ghazal, and madīh—occupied a central place and were cultivated by numerous poets and literati. During the Fāṭimid period, state patronage played a significant role in the flourishing of literature and poetry. Scholars, poets, and men of letters were supported and salaried by the state, which encouraged many individuals to pursue these fields.In this period, literature—and particularly poetry—was shaped within the framework of the Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī ideology that formed the official doctrine of the state, thereby acquiring new layers of meaning. The poets of the era interpreted traditional religious concepts not only in their exoteric (ẓāhir) sense but also through esoteric (bāṭin) meanings distinctive to Ismāʿīlī thought. Terms such as walāya (spiritual authority), nūr (divine light), fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, ḥujjat Allāh, yad Allāh, and wajh Allāh were re-appropriated and reinterpreted within a theological framework centered on the figure of the imām. In this context, such terms became symbolic motifs emphasizing the imām’s divine authority, spiritual guidance, and cosmic role.Thus, poetry became a significant medium of Ismāʿīlī daʿwa (religious-political propagation), where the caliphs—considered the imām’s earthly representatives—were praised and exalted through elaborate madīh compositions. This article examines how Ismāʿīlī terminology was employed in Fāṭimid poetry and analyzes the semantic expansions these terms underwent within poetic usage through selected examples. In doing so, it demonstrates that poetry in this period functioned not merely as an aesthetic creation, but also as an ideological discourse conveying the doctrinal principles of the state