Intertextuality in the Poetry of al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Nīlī (d. 391 AH): A Socio-Textual Study

Abstract

This study examines the phenomenon of intertextuality in the poetry of al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Nīlī (d. 391 AH) from a socio-textual perspective that combines textual analysis with cultural and social dimensions, focusing on two principal levels: religious (particularly Qur’anic) intertextuality and literary (especially poetic) intertextuality. Drawing on modern theoretical frameworks, including Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism, Julia Kristeva’s notion of textual productivity, and Gérard Genette’s concept of transtextuality, the study explores the dynamics of textual interaction within the poetic structure. It analyzes the artistic mechanisms employed by the poet in incorporating reference texts—such as appropriation, transformation, and pragmatic displacement—demonstrating how he reconstructs these texts within a new poetic context marked by irony, paradox, and expressive boldness. The findings reveal that intertextuality in Ibn al-Ḥajjāj’s poetry goes beyond rhetorical ornamentation to perform a deconstructive function that redistributes symbolic authority between the sacred and the profane, and between the absent and the present text, reflecting a critical awareness of dominant discourses in his time. The study concludes that his poetry constitutes a productive textual space in which religious, literary, and social discourses intersect, mirroring the transformations of cultural and social consciousness in the Abbasid era and embodying the dynamic nature of textual interaction with its references and contexts.