Arabic riddles

Riddles are historically a significant genre of Arabic literature. The Qur’an does not contain riddles as such, though it does contain conundra. But riddles are attested in early Arabic literary culture, 'scattered in old stories attributed to the pre-Islamic bedouins, in the "ḥadīth" and elsewhere; and collected in chapters'. Since the nineteenth century, extensive scholarly collections have also been made of riddles in oral circulation.
Although in 1996 the Syrian proverbs scholar Khayr al-Dīn Shamsī Pasha published a survey of Arabic riddling, analysis of this literary form has been neglected by modern scholars, including its emergence in Arabic writing; there is also a lack of editions of important collections. A major study of grammatical and semantic riddles was, however, published in 2012, and since 2017 legal riddles have enjoyed growing attention.
Terminology and genres.
Riddles are known in Arabic principally as "lughz" () (pl. "alghāz" ألغاز), but other terms include "uḥjiyya" (pl. "aḥājī"), and "ta'miya".
"Lughz" is a capacious term. As al-Nuwayrī (1272–1332) puts it in the chapter on "alghāz" and "aḥājī" in his "Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab":
"Lughz" is thought to derive from the phrase "alghaza ’l-yarbū‘u wa-laghaza", which described the action of a field rat when it burrows its way first straight ahead but then veers off to the left or right in order to more successfully elude its enemies ("li-yuwāriya bi-dhālika") so that it becomes, as it were, almost invisible ("wa-yu‘ammiya ‘alā ṭālibihī"). But in fact our language also has many other names of "lughz" such as "mu’āyāh", "’awīṣ", "ramz", "muḥāgāh", "abyāt al-ma’ānī", "malāḥin", "marmūs", "ta’wīl", "kināyah", "ta‘rīd", "ishārah", "tawgīh", "mu‘ammā", "mumaththal". Although each of these terms is used more or less interchangeably for "lughz", the very fact that there are so many of them is indicative of the varied explanations which the concept of "lughz" can apparently support.
This array of terms goes beyond those covered by "riddle" in English, into metaphor, ambiguity, and punning, indicating the fuzzy boundaries of the concept of the riddle in literary Arabic culture.
Overlap with other genres.
Since early Arabic poetry often features rich, metaphorical description, and ekphrasis, there is a natural overlap in style and approach between poetry generally and riddles specifically; literary riddles are therefore often a subset of the descriptive poetic form known as "waṣf".
To illustrate how some epigrams ("maqāṭīʿ") are riddles Adam Talib contrasts the following poems. The first, from an anonymous seventeenth-century anthology, runs:
The second is from the fifteenth-century "Rawḍ al-ādāb" by Shihāb ad-Dīn al-Ḥijāzī al-Khazrajī:
In the first case, the subject of the epigram is clearly stated within the epigram itself, such that the epigram cannot be considered a riddle. In the second, however, the resolution 'depends on the reader deducing the point after the poem has been read'.
"Muʿammā".
The term "muʿammā" (literally 'blinded' or 'obscured') is sometimes used as a synonym for "lughz" (or to denote cryptography or codes more generally), but it can be used specifically to denote a riddle which is solved 'by combining the constituent letters of the word or name to be found'.
The muʿammā is in verse, does not include an interrogatory element, and involves clues as to the letters or sounds of the word. One example of the form is a riddle on the name Aḥmad:
Another example, cited by Ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī, has the answer 'Saʿīd'. Here, and in the transliteration that follows, short vowels are transliterated in superscript, as they are not included in the Arabic spelling:
The first known exponent of the "muʿammā" form seems to have been the major classical poet Abu Nuwas, though other poets are also credited with inventing the form: Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (noted for his cryptography) and Ali ibn Abi Talib.
It appears that the "muʿammā" form became popular from perhaps the thirteenth century.
"Muʿammā" riddles also include puzzles using the numerical values of letters.
Chronograms.
A subset of the "mu‘ammā" is the chronogram (, "taʾrīkh"), a puzzle in which the reader must add up the numerical values of the letters of a hemistich to arrive as a figure; this figure is the year of the event described in the poem. The form seems to have begun in Arabic in the thirteenth century and gained popularity from the fifteenth; as with examples of the same form in Latin, it was borrowed from Hebrew and Aramaic texts using the same device, possibly via Persian. The following poem is by the pre-eminent composer in the form, Māmayah al-Rūmī (d. 1577):
The letters of the last hemistich have the following values:
These add up to 974 AH (1566 CE), the year of the drought which al-Rūmī was describing.
"Abyat al-ma'ani".
"Abyāt al-maʿānī" is a technical term related to the genre of "alghāz". In a chapter on "alghāz", Al-Suyuti defines the genre as follows:
Legal riddles ("alghāz fiqhīya").
There is a significant tradition of literary riddles on legal matters in Arabic. According to Matthew Keegan, 'the legal riddle operates as a "fatwā" in reverse. It presents an apparently counterintuitive legal ruling or legal outcome, one that might even be shocking. The solution is derived by reverse-engineering the situation in which such a "fatwā" or legal outcome would be correct'. He gives as an example the following riddle by Ibn Farḥūn (d. 1397):
If you said: A man who is fit to be a prayer leader but who is not fit to be a congregant?<br>Then I would say: He is the blind man who became deaf after learning what was necessary for him to lead prayer. It is not permissible for him to be led by a prayer leader because he would not be aware of the imām’s actions unless someone alerted him to them.
Legal riddles appear to have become a major literary genre in the fourteenth century. Elias G. Saba has attributed this development to the spread of intellectual literary salons ("majālis") in the Mamlūk period, which demanded the oral performance of arcane knowledge, and in turn influenced written texts. By the fourteenth century, scholars were starting to gather existing legal riddles into chapters of jurisprudential works, among them Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 1370) in an eclectic chapter of his "Kitāb al-Ashbāh wa-l-Naẓāʾir".
The earliest anthologies specifically of legal riddles seem to have been composed in the fourteenth century, and the erliest known today are:
These show three of the four main schools of legal thought producing riddle-collections; the Ḥanbalī school, however, seems not to have participated much in legal riddling. The overlap between legal riddles and literature on distinctions seems to have been at its greatest in Mamlūk Cairo. A particularly influential example of a collection of legal riddles was ʿAbd al-Barr Ibn al-Shiḥna (d. 1515), who wrote "al-Dhakhāʾir al-ashrafiyya fī alghāz al-ḥanafiyya".
The origins of the form stretch back earlier, however. According to some "ḥadīth", the use of riddles to encourage thought about religious constraints in Islam goes back to the Prophet himself. The genre of legal riddling seems to have arisen partly from an interest in other intellectually challenging jurisprudential matters: "ḥiyal" (strategems for avoiding breaking the letter of the law) and "furūq" (subtle distinctions). It seems also to have drawn inspiration from literary texts: the "Futyā Faqīh al-ʿArab" ('The Fatwās of the Jurist of the Arabs') by Ibn Fāris (d. 1004) includes 'a series of "fatwā"s that initially appear to be absurd and incorrect' but which can be rendered logical by invoking non-obvious meanings of the words used in the "fatwā"s. This form was deployed soon after in the highly influential "Maqāmāt" of al-Ḥarīrī of Basra (d. 1122).
History of literary riddles.
Pre-Abbasid (pre-750 CE).
In "ḥadīth".
One riddle attributed to the Prophet is found in the "Bāb al-ḥayā" of the "Kitāb al-ʿIlm" of the "Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buckārī" by al-Bukhārī (d. 870) and the "Muwaṭṭa⁠ʾ" by Mālik ibn Anas (d. 796). Muḥammad says: “There is a kind of tree that does not lose its leaves and is like a Muslim. Tell me what it is”. The "hadith" tradition records the answer: the date palm ("nakhla"). But it does not explain in what way the date palm is like a Muslim, which led to extensive debate among medieval Muslim scholars. The "hadith" is important, however, as it legitimated the use of riddles in theological and legal education in Islam.
According to Al-Subkī, the earliest known example of post-prophetic riddles concerns the Prophet's companion Ibn ʿAbbās (d. c. 687), who is asked a series of exegetical conundra such as “Tell me of a man who enters Paradise but God forbade Muḥammad to act as he acted”. (Ibn ʿAbbās answers that this is Jonah, since the Koran tells Muḥammad "be not like the Companion of the fish, when he cried while he was in distress" in sura 68:48.)
In poetry.
There is little evidence for Arabic riddling in the pre-Islamic period. A riddle contest, supposedly between the sixth-century CE Imru' al-Qais and ‘Abīd ibn al-Abraṣ, exists, but is not thought actually to have been composed by these poets. One of the earliest reliably attested composers of riddles was Dhu al-Rummah (c. 696-735), whose verse riddles 'undoubtedly contributed' to the 'rooting and spread' of Arabic literary riddles, though his exact contribution to this process is 'yet to be assessed'. His "Uḥjiyyat al-ʿArab" ('the riddle-poem of the Arabs') is particularly striking, comprising a "nasīb" (stanzas 1-14), travel "faḥr" (15-26) and then twenty-six enigmatic statements (28-72). Odes 27, 64, 82 and 83 also contain riddles. 64 writes of the earth as though it were a camel, while 82 runs:
The solution to this riddle is that the narrator is drawing water from a well. The 'shy maid' is a bucket. The bucket has a ring on it, into which the narrator inserts a pin which is attached to the rope which he uses the draw up the water. As the bucket is drawn up, it makes noise, but once at the top it is still and therefore quiet. Once the bucket is still, the narrator can pour out the water, and the bucket desires to be filled again.
Abbasid (750-1258 CE).
By poets.
According to Pieter Smoor, discussing a range of ninth- to eleventh-century poets,There is a slow but discernable development which can be traced in the Arabic riddle poem through the course of time. The earlier poets, like Ibn al-Rūmi, al-Sarī al-Raffā’ and Mutanabbī composed riddle poems of the 'narrow' kind, i.e. without the use of helpful homonyms ... Abu ’l-‘Alā’'s practise, however, tended toward the reverse: in his work 'narrow' riddles have become comparatively rare ... while homonymous riddles are quite common.Riddles are discussed by literary and grammatical commentators — allegedly beginning with the eighth-century grammarian al-Khalīl ibn Ahmad (d. 786), (who was later even to be credited with the invention of the (rhymed) riddle). Prominent discussions include the tenth-century Ibrāhīm ibn Wahb al-Kātib in his "Kitāb naqd al-nathr", and "al-Mathal al-sāʾir" (chapter 21, "fī al-aḥājī") by Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Abu ’l-Fatḥ Naṣr Allāh Ibn al-Athīr (d. 1239). Such texts are also important repositories of riddles.
Collections of riddles appear, alongside other poetry, in Abbasid anthologies. They include chapter 89 of "al-Zahra" (") by Ibn Dā’ūd al-Iṣbahāni (868-909 CE); part of book 25 of "al-ʿIqd al-Farīd" (specifically the section entitled "Bāb al-lughz") by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih (860–940); "Ḥilyat al-muḥāḍara" by al-Ḥātimī (d. 998); and the chapter entitled in Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī's "Dīwān al-maʿānī" (d. after 1009).
Among the diverse subjects covered by riddles in this period, the pen was particularly popular: the "Dhakhīrah" of Ibn Bassām (1058-1147), for example, presents examples by Ibn Khafājah, Ibn al-Mu‘tazz, Abu Tammām and Ibn al-Rūmī and al-Ma‘arrī. Musical instruments are another popular topic, along with lamps and candles.
Among the extensive body of ekphrastic poems by Ibn al-Rūmī (d. 896), Pieter Smoor identified only one as a riddle:
The solution to this riddle is the burning wick of an oil lamp. The diwān of Ibn al-Mu‘tazz (861-908) contains riddles on the penis, water-wheel, reed-pipe, palm-trees, and two on ships. The dīwān of Al-Sarī al-Raffā’ (d. 973) contains several riddles on mundane objects, including a fishing net, candle, fan, fleas, a drum, and a fire-pot. al-Maʾmūnī (d. 993) is noted for a large corpus of epigrammatic descriptions which shade into the genre of the riddle. Carl Brockelmann noted Abū Abdallāh al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad al-Mughallis, associated with the court of Baha al-Dawla (r. 988–1012), as a key composer of riddles. Abū al-ʿAlā’ al-Marʿarrī (973-1057) is also noted as an exponent of riddles; his lost work "Gāmiʿ al-awzān" is said by Ibn al-‘Adīm to have contained 9,000 poetic lines of riddles, some of which are preserved by later scholars, principally Yūsuf al-Badī‘ī. Al-Marʿarrī's riddles are characterised by wordplay and religious themes. Usāma ibn Munqidh developed the riddle-form as a vehicle metaphorically to convey personal feelings. The dīwān of Ibn al-Farid (1181-1234) contains fifty-four riddles, of the "mu'amma" type. A vast collection of epigrammatic riddles on slave-girls, "Alf jāriyah wa-jāriyah", was composed by Ibn al-Sharīf Dartarkhwān al-‘Ādhilī (d. 1257).
In narrative contexts.
Riddles also came to be integrated into the episodic anthologies known as "maqamat" ('assemblies'). An early example was the "Maqamat" by Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhani (969–1007 CE), for example in assemblies 3, 29, 31, 35. This example of one of al-Hamadhānī's riddles comes from elsewhere in his diwan, and was composed for Sahib ibn Abbad:
The brothers are millstones, driven by a waterwheel made of wood.
Al-Hamadhani's "Maqamat" were an inspiration for the "Maqāmāt" of Al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122 CE), which contain several different kinds of enigmas (assemblies 3, 8, 15, 24, 29, 32, 35, 36, 42 and 44) and establish him as one of the pre-eminent riddle-writers of the medieval Arab world. One of his riddles runs as follows:
Then he said 'now here is another for you, O lords of intellect, fraught with obscurity:
<poem style="margin-left:2em">One split in his head it is, through whom ‘the writ’ is known, as honoured recording angels take their pride in him;
When given to drink he craves for more, as though athirst, and settles to rest when thirstiness takes hold of him;
And scatters tears about him when ye bid him run, but tears that sparkle with the brightness of a smile.</poem>
After we could not guess who this might be, he told us he was riddling upon a reed-pen.
Meanwhile, an example of legal riddling in the collection is this moment when the protagonist, Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī, is asked "is it permitted to circumambulate ("al-taṭawwuf") in the spring ("al-rabīʿ")" — that is, the question seems to ask whether the important custom of walking around the Kaʿba is permitted in spring. Unexpectedly, Abū Zayd replies 'that is reprehensible due to the occurrence of a repugnant thing' — and the text explains that he says this because the word "al-taṭawwuf" can also mean 'relieve one’s bowels' and "al-rabīʿ" can also mean 'a source of water'.
The only medieval manuscript of the "One Thousand and One Nights", the Galland Manuscript, contains no riddles. Night 49 does, however, contain two verses portrayed as descriptions written on objects, which are similar in form to verse riddles. The first is written on a goblet:
The second is written on a chessboard:
However, several stories in later manuscripts of the "Nights" do involve riddles. For example, a perhaps tenth-century CE story about the legendary poet Imru' al-Qais features him insisting that he will marry only the woman who can say which eight, four, and two are. Rather than 'fourteen', the answer is the number of teats on, respectively, a dog, a camel, and a woman. In the face of other challenges, successful prosecution of al-Qais's marriage continues to depend on the wit of his new fiancée.
Folk riddles.
Riddles have been collected by scholars throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and we can arguably 'speak of the Arabic riddle as a discrete phenomenon'. Examples of modern riddles, as categorised and selected by Chyet, are:
Influence.
Arabic riddle-traditions also influenced medieval Hebrew poetry. One prominent Hebrew exponent of the form is the medieval Andalusian poet Judah Halevi, who for example wrote
<poem style="margin-left:2em">
What's slender, smooth and fine,
and speaks with power while dumb,
and spews the blood of lambs?
</poem>