Wafir

{{Short description|Arabic poetry meter}} {{Use American English|date=December 2025}} '''Wāfir''' ({{langx|ar|وَافِر}}, literally 'numerous, abundant, ample, exuberant') is a meter used in classical Arabic poetry. It is among the five most popular meters of classical Arabic poetry, accounting (alongside ''ṭawīl'', ''basīṭ'', ''kāmil'', and ''mutaqārib'') for 80-90% of lines and poems in the ancient and classical Arabic corpus.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Paoli |first1=Bruno |chapter=Generative Linguistics and Arabic Metrics |pages=193–208 |chapter-url={{Google books|ieM5AAAAQBAJ|page=193|plainurl=yes}} |editor1-last=Aroui |editor1-first=Jean-Louis |editor2-last=Arleo |editor2-first=Andy |title=Towards a Typology of Poetic Forms: From language to metrics and beyond |date=30 September 2009 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=978-90-272-8904-9 }}</ref>

==Form== The meter comprises paired hemistichs of the following form (where "–" represents a long syllable, "u" a short syllable, and "<u>uu</u>" one long or two shorts):<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=van Gelder |editor1-first=Geert Jan |chapter=Introduction |pages=xiii–xxv |jstor=j.ctt9qfxj6.5 |title=Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology |date=2013 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-7027-6 }}</ref> :| u – <u>uu</u> – | u – <u>uu</u> – | u – – | Thus, unlike most classical Arabic meters, ''wāfir'' allows the poet to substitute one long syllable for two shorts, an example of the prosodic element known as a ''biceps''. Thus allows ''wāfir'' lines to have different numbers of syllables from each other, a characteristic otherwise only found in ''kāmil'', ''mutadārik'' and some forms of ''basīṭ''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stoetzer |first1=W. |chapter=Rajaz |pages=645–646 |chapter-url={{Google books|DbCFBX6b3eEC|page=645|plainurl=yes}} |editor1-last=Meisami |editor1-first=Julie Scott |editor2-last=Starkey |editor2-first=Paul |title=Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature |date=1998 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-415-18572-1 }}</ref>

''Wāfir'' is traditionally represented with the mnemonic (''tafāʿīl'') ''{{transliteration|ar|DIN|Mufāʿalatun Mufāʿalatun Faʿūlun}}'' ({{lang|ar|مُفَاعَلَتُنْ مُفاعَلَتُنْ فَعولُنْ}}).

==History==

Historically, ''wāfir'' perhaps arose, along with ''ṭawīl'' and ''mutaqārib'', from ''hazaj''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Toorawa |first1=Shawkat M. |title=Review of Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms: Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th Birthday Presented by His Students and Colleagues |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=2012 |volume=132 |issue=3 |pages=491–497 |id={{Gale|A314256029}} {{ProQuest|1282115359}} |doi=10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.3.0491 |jstor=10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.3.0491 }}</ref> In the analysis of Salma K. Jayyusi, the Umayyad poet Jarir ibn Atiyah used the meter for about a fifth of his work, and at that time "this metre was still fresh and did not carry echoes of great pre-Islamic poets as did ''ṭawīl'' and ''baṣīt''. ''Wāfir'' had therefore a great potential for introducing a diction nearer to the spoken language of the Umayyad period."<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1017/CHOL9780521240154.021 |chapter=Umayyad poetry |title=Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period |year=1983 |last1=Jayyusi |first1=Salma K. |pages=387–432 |isbn=978-0-521-24015-4 }}</ref>

The meter, like other Arabic meters, was later borrowed into other poetic traditions. For example, it was adopted in Hebrew, where it is known as ''hamerubeh''<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.5744/florida/9780813036496.003.0013 |chapter=Miṣḥaf al-Shbaḥot—The Holy Book of Praises of the Babylonian Jews: One Thousand Years of Cultural Harmony between Judaism and Islam |title=The Convergence of Judaism and Islam: Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions |year=2011 |last1=Rosenfeld-Hadad |first1=Merav |pages=241–271 |isbn=978-0-8130-3649-6 }}</ref> and became one of the pre-eminent meters of medieval poetry.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Idelsohn |first1=Abraham Zebi |title=Jewish Music: Its Historical Development |date=1992 |publisher=Courier Corporation |isbn=978-0-486-27147-7 |url={{Google books|sqrrPJ6Eh-cC|page=116|plainurl=yes}} |page=116 }}</ref> In the Arabic and Arabic-influenced vernacular poetry of Sub-Saharan Africa it also features,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Abdullah |first1=Abdul-Samad |title=Intertextuality and West African Arabic Poetry: Reading Nigerian Arabic Poetry of the 19th and 20th Centuries |journal=Journal of Arabic Literature |date=2009 |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=335–361 |doi=10.1163/008523709X12554960674610 |jstor=20720593 }}</ref> for example in Fula<ref name=Arnott>{{cite book |last1=Arnott |first1=D. W. |chapter=Literature in Fula |pages=72–96 |chapter-url={{Google books|gfH2A6AhZ7wC|page=72|plainurl=yes}} |editor1-last=Andrzejewski |editor1-first=B. W. |editor2-last=Pilaszewicz |editor2-first=S. |editor3-last=Tyloch |editor3-first=W. |title=Literatures in African Languages: Theoretical Issues and Sample Surveys |date=21 November 1985 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-25646-9 }}</ref> and Hausa.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Greenberg |first1=J. H. |title=Hausa Verse Prosody |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=1949 |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=125–135 |doi=10.2307/594988 |jstor=594988 }}</ref> It also underpins some oral poetic traditions in Palestine.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Yaqub |first1=Nadia |title=Towards a Synchronic Metrical Analysis of Oral Palestinian Poetry |journal=Al-'Arabiyya |date=2003 |volume=36 |pages=1–26 |jstor=43195707 }}</ref> However, it was not used in Urdu, Turkish, or Persian (or perhaps, rather, it can be said to have merged for linguistic reasons with ''hazaj'').<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deo |first1=Ashwini |last2=Kiparsky |first2=Paul |chapter=Poetries in Contact: Arabic, Persian, and Urdu |pages=147–173 |chapter-url=https://u.osu.edu/deo.13/files/2015/06/DeoKiparsky2011-2fsd6ay.pdf |editor1-last=Lotman |editor1-first=Mihhail |editor2-last=Lotman |editor2-first=Maria-Kristiina |title=Frontiers in Comparative Prosody: In Memoriam Mikhail Gasparov |date=2011 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-3-0343-0373-6 |citeseerx=10.1.1.308.5139 }}</ref>

==Examples==

The following Arabic epigram by ‘Ulayya bint al-Mahdī is in ''wāfir'' meter:<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=van Gelder |editor1-first=Geert Jan |chapter=Three Love Epigrams by ‘Ulayyah Bint al-Mahdī |pages=46–48 |chapter-url={{Google books|A6gUCgAAQBAJ|page=46|plainurl=yes}} |jstor=j.ctt9qfxj6.23 |title=Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology |date=2013 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-7027-6 }}</ref>

:{{lang|ar|كتمتُ اسم الحبيب من العباد * وردّدت الصبابة في فؤادي}} :{{lang|ar|فوا شوقي إلى بلدِِ خليّ * لعلّي باسْم من أهوى أنادي}}

:''katamtu sma l-ḥabībi mina l-‘ibādī / wa-raddadtu ṣ-ṣabābata fī fu’ādī'' :''fa-wā-shawqī ’ilā baladin khaliyyin / la‘allī bi-smi man ’ahwā ’unādī''

:| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – uu – | u – – | :| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – – – | u – – |

:I have hidden the name of my love from the crowd: / for my passion my heart is the only safe space. :How I long for an empty and desolate place / in order to call my love's name out aloud.

An example of the meter in Fula is the following poem by Ïsa ɓii Usmānu (1817-?):<ref name=Arnott />

:''Kulen Allaahu Mawɗo nyalooma jemma, / Mbaɗen ka salaatu, hooti mbaɗen salaama'' :''He dow ɓurnaaɗo tagle he Aalo’en fuu, / Sahaabo’en he taabi’i, yimɓe himma.'' :''Nufaare nde am mi yusɓoya gimɗi, anndee, / mi woyra ɗi Naana; ɓernde fu firgitaama'' :''He yautuki makko, koowa he anndi juulɓe / mbaɗii hasar haqiiqa, cunninaama.''

:| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – | :| u – – – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – uu – | u – – | :| u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – || u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – | :| u – uu – | u – uu – | u – – || u – – – | u – – – | u – – |

:Let us fear Allah the Great day and night, / let us continually invoke blessing and peace :Upon the best of creatures and all his kinsfolk, / his companions and followers, men of zeal. :Know ye, my intention is to compose verses / and with them to lament for Nāna; every heart is startled :At her passing, everyone knows that the Moslems / have suffered loss indeed, and have been saddened.

==References== {{reflist}}

{{Poetic meters}}{{Authority control}}

Category:Arabic poetry Category:Poetic rhythm Category:Arabic poetry forms Category:Arabic and Central Asian poetics