The Maqamat of Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani

Maqamat Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani, the first book written in the art of maqamat, did not receive the same attention in terms of explanation and interpretation of its difficult parts as did al-Hariri's Maqamat, for reasons known to those who have studied Badi' al-Zaman's Maqamat and his letters, such as letter number 167. Consequently, the larger part of it was lost, and out of the original 400 maqamat that constituted the book, only 52 remained. Scribes tampered with them, as Imam Muhammad Abduh said: (by corrupting the structure and changing the meaning with additions that harm the originals and mislead the mind from what is rational, and omissions that disrupt styles and demolish the structure of compositions. So, the one who looks at them, if he is weak, will go astray and be confused, and if he is knowledgeable, he will not be safe from stumbling)

Haji Khalifa briefly defined it and sufficed by saying: (He preceded al-Hariri, and al-Hariri composed his work following his pattern), while he named about forty commentaries on al-Hariri's Maqamat. Thus, the first to undertake the explanation of al-Hamadhani's Maqamat was Imam Muhammad Abduh, after his return from Paris to Beirut: (Ramadan 1306 AH / 1888 AD). His commentary was printed in the Catholic Press there in 1889 AD, and he declared that he had omitted some scandalous phrases from two maqamat, and also omitted the entire Al-Shamiya Maqama (its place is after Al-Maristania Maqama). Most publishers of the Maqamat followed him in this, and this maqama was affirmed in the Al-Jawa'ib edition in 1298 AH, which was the first edition of the Maqamat. Farouk Saad affirmed it in his edition (Beirut 1982, Dar Al-Afaq Al-Jadida: p. 194), but he omitted the conclusion of Al-Rasafia Maqama (p. 228) without drawing attention to it, which is the conclusion that Muhammad Abduh apologized for publishing (p. 157)