An Encounter With a Maqama Troll
17th January 2016
Baron Bodissey, at Gates of Vienna blog, recounts an adventure.
In medieval Arabic literature, maqama were collections of tales recounted in a mixture of poetry and prose. Each vignette described the accomplishments of a sly trickster who hoodwinked his adversaries using deceptive rhetoric.
In recent days here at Gates of Vienna we’ve had our own silver-tongued Arab dazzling us with his maqama in comments on various posts. Dubbing himself “Muslim”, he left a series of reasonable-sounding, carefully balanced comments whose style verged on the unctuous. When anyone responded to him, he offered additional soothing bromides with equal verbal virtuosity.