ADAB

Islamic concept that became a literary genre distinguished by its broad humanitarian concerns; it developed during the brilliant height of 'Abbasid culture in the 9th century and continued through the Muslim Middle Ages. The original sense of the word was simply "norm of conduct," or "custom," derived in ancient Arabia from ancestors revered as models. As such practice was deemed praiseworthy in the medieval Muslim world, adab acquired a further connotation of good breeding, courtesy, and urbanity. Parallel to and growing out of this expanded social meaning of adab there appeared an intellectual aspect. Adab became the knowledge of poetry, oratory, ancient Arab tribal history, rhetoric, grammar, philology, and non-Arab civilizations that qualified a man to be called well-bred, or adib. Such men produced a vast and erudite adab literature, concerned with man and his achievements and written in a style rich in vocabulary and idiom, and usually expressive and flexible. They included such writers as the 9th-century essayist al-Jahiz of Basra and his 11th-century follower Abu Hayyan at-Tawhidi; the 9th-century Kufan critic, philologist, and theologian Ibn Qutaybah; and the 11th-century poet al-Ma'arri. As the golden age of the 'Abbasids declined, however, the boundaries of adab narrowed into belles lettres: poetry, elegant prose, anecdotal writing (maqamat). In the modern Arab world adab merely signifies literature. Islamic concept that became a literary genre distinguished by its broad humanitarian concerns; it developed during the brilliant height of 'Abbasid culture in the 9th century and continued through the Muslim Middle Ages. The original sense of the word was simply "norm of conduct," or "custom," derived in ancient Arabia from ancestors revered as models. As such practice was deemed praiseworthy in the medieval Muslim world, adab acquired a further connotation of good breeding, courtesy, and urbanity. Parallel to and growing out of this expanded social meaning of adab there appeared an intellectual aspect. Adab became the knowledge of poetry, oratory, ancient Arab tribal history, rhetoric, grammar, philology, and non-Arab civilizations that qualified a man to be called well-bred, or adib. Such men produced a vast and erudite adab literature, concerned with man and his achievements and written in a style rich in vocabulary and idiom, and usually expressive and flexible. They included such writers as the 9th-century essayist al-Jahiz of Basra and his 11th-century follower Abu Hayyan at-Tawhidi; the 9th-century Kufan critic, philologist, and theologian Ibn Qutaybah; and the 11th-century poet al-Ma'arri. As the golden age of the 'Abbasids declined, however, the boundaries of adab narrowed into belles lettres: poetry, elegant prose, anecdotal writing (maqamat). In the modern Arab world adab merely signifies literature. weather god of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon. The name Adad may have been brought into Mesopotamia toward the end of the 3rd millennium BC by Western (Amorite) Semites. His Sumerian equivalent was Ishkur and the West Semitic was Hadad. Adad had a twofold aspect, being both the giver and the destroyer of life. His rains caused the land to bear grain and other food for his friends; hence his title Lord of Abundance. His storms and hurricanes, evidences of his anger against his foes, brought darkness, want, and death. Adad's father was the heaven god Anu, but he is also designated as the son of Bel, Lord of All Lands and god of the atmosphere. His consort was Shalash, which may be a Hurrian name. The symbol of Adad was the cypress, and six was his sacred number. The bull and the lion were sacred to him. In Babylonia, Assyria, and Aleppo in Syria, he was also the god of oracles and divination. Unlike the greater gods, Adad quite possibly had no cult centre peculiar to himself, although he was worshiped in many of the important cities and towns of Mesopotamia, including Babylon and Ashur, the capital of Assyria.