A strophic Arabic verse form invented in Islamic Iberia, breaking from the monorhyme of the classical qasida with multiple stanzas that shift rhyme, most famous for closing with a kharja, a final couplet sometimes voiced in colloquial Arabic or the Iberian Romance vernacular rather than classical Arabic.
Facts
Place of OriginAl-Andalus (Islamic Iberia), 9th-10th century. 1 StructureMultiple stanzas combining a shifting rhyme with a fixed refrain rhyme repeated across stanzas, closing with a distinct final couplet (kharja) often in vernacular language. 1 Notable ExampleMuwashshahat composed by Andalusian Arabic and Hebrew poets including Judah Halevi. 1 Connections
Form Of Genre
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Influenced
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Sources
1. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
Muwashshah (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Lead section, first sentenceQuote, Lead section, first sentence
Muwashshah (Arabic: مُوَشَّح muwaššaḥ 'girdled'; plural مُوَشَّحَات muwaššaḥāt) is a strophic poetic form that developed in al-Andalus in the late 10th and early 11th centuries.
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