© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi : 10 . 1163 / 22142371 - 12340040 Journal of Abbasid Studies 5 ( 2018 ) 105 - 145 brill.com/jas Throwing the Reins to the Reader: Hierarchy, Jurjānian Poetics, and al-Muṭarrizī’s Commentary on the Maqāmāt Matthew L. Keegan Barnard College of Columbia University, New York mk3482@nyu.edu Abstract This article introduces al-Muṭarrizī’s (d. 610/1213) commentary on the Maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī (d. 516/1122), al-Īḍāḥ f ī sharḥ al-maqāmāt. The commentary begins with a lengthy preface, which announces that it will provide the Maqāmāt’s reader with the interpretive tools necessary to recognize that al-Ḥarīrī’s Maqāmāt is an excellent, and possibly inimitable, text. The first portion of al-Muṭarrizī’s preface, examined in de- tail here, contains a collage of passages and paraphrases from the two major works on poetics by ʿ Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078 or 474/1081). The article argues that al-Muṭarrizī, al-Jurjānī, and al-Ḥarīrī shared a common commitment to the idea that language ought to make apparent the intellectual hierarchies among readers. This overlooked aspect of Jurjānian poetics helps shed light on the reading and interpre- tive practices that informed the Maqāmāt’s enthusiastic reception as a text that was Qurʾān-like in its inimitability. Keywords Arabic literature – commentary – Maqāmāt – poetics – Qurʾān Heruntergeladen von Brill.com12/05/2018 04:28:21AM via Columbia University Libraries