Spatial and Social Structure in the Poetry of Ibn La'bun and Abdullah ibn Rabi'ah
(A Comparative Analytical Study)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33193/IJoHSS.72.2026.944Keywords:
Nabati poetry, Ibn Laboun, Abdullah ibn Rabi'ah, Zubair, urban space, content analysis, symbolic rivalry, poetic debates, place in poetry, poetic discourse analysisAbstract
This study aims to analyze the spatial and social structure in the poetry of the poets Muhammad ibn La'bun and Abdullah ibn Rabi'ah, and to reveal the nature of the representation of the city of Zubair as an urban and cultural space in Nabati poetry during the nineteenth century. The study also seeks to analyze the dimensions of symbolic competition and poetic exchanges between the two poets, through the application of spatial and social content analysis to the poetic texts.
The study relies on a poetic corpus comprising the collected works of Muhammad ibn La'bun and Abdullah ibn Rabi'ah, in addition to the exchanged poems and poetic allusions found in heritage and literary sources related to Zubair and its poets. This study employs a comparative approach, combining quantitative analysis of spatial and social vocabulary with qualitative analysis of poetic discourse, to reveal the urban and emotional structures reflected in the poetic texts.
The study shows that Ibn Laboun's poetry tends to emphasize the emotional and sentimental dimensions of place, while Abdullah ibn Rabi'ah's poetry exhibits a greater emphasis on the social and competitive dimensions. Furthermore, the results suggest that the poetic texts are not merely descriptions of place, but rather reflect an integrated urban, social, and cultural structure that can be analyzed within the frameworks of literary geography, emotional geography, and symbolic discourse analysis. The study concludes that Nabati poetry in Zubair represents an important source for understanding the city's cultural and social geography during the nineteenth century. It also highlights the importance of employing spatial and social approaches in analyzing poetic texts and reinterpreting the relationship between literature and the city within the Gulf context.
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