Maqama (nonfiction)

Maqāmah (مقامة, pl. maqāmāt, مقامات, literally "assemblies") are an (originally) Arabic prosimetric literary genre which alternates the Arabic rhymed prose known as Saj‘ with intervals of poetry in which rhetorical extravagance is conspicuous.

There are only eleven illustrated versions of the Maqāmāt from the thirteenth and fourteenth century that survive to this day. Four of these currently reside in the British Library in London, while three are in Paris at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (including the al-Harīrī's Maqāmāt). One copy is at the following libraries: the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Suleymaniye Library in Istanbul, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, and the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.

These Maqāmāt manuscripts were likely created and illustrated for the specialized book markets in cities such as Baghdad, Cairo, and Damascus, rather than for any particular patron. The audience for these manuscripts were of elite and educated classes, such as nobles or scholars, as the Maqāmāt was largely appreciated and valued for its nuanced poetry and language choice, rather than its manuscript illustrations. The al-Harīrī Maqāmāt, also called the Schefer Maqāmāt, was illustrated by al-Wasiti and contains the highest amount of illustrations as well as being the most studied by scholars.

• Maqama @ Wikipedia