The Inter-communal Poetry of Niqūlāwus as-Sā’iḡ (1692–1756)

Abstract

After discussing the background to the emergence of several noted Christian writers in Aleppo around 1700, this article presents the life and work of one of them, Niqūlāwus a s- S ā ’i ḡ (1692–1756), a Greek Catholic monk who was mainly responsible for establishing the Shuwayrite Basilian Order in his Church. While most of his poetry is religious, a few poems are dedicated to secular and non-Christian personalities, most of them political notables on whose support the Order depended. The article examines in detail a panegyric of members of the Druze Abī al-Lam‘ family and a poem in reply to one of A s - S ā ’i ḡ’s friends, a Šī‘ī religious dignitary, showing how A s - S ā ’i ḡ works within the conventions of Arabic poetry of his time. It is noteworthy that he refers to the religious and historical heritage of the addressees of his poems, while at the same time reminding them that he himself is a Christian monk.