Ibn Zaydun al-Andalusi's Nuniyyah in Light of Semantic Fields

Abstract

This research examines the poetic language of Ibn Zaydun's celebrated Nuniyyah (Adha at-tanai badilan min tadanina), composed in praise of his beloved Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, through the lens of semantic field analysis as a procedural tool for uncovering the nature of the poet's diction, its meanings, and its congruence with his emotional experience. The study adopts the descriptive-analytical method to trace eight semantic fields that constitute the poem's linguistic fabric: longing and yearning, separation (al-bayn), courtship (ghazal), time, Islamic expressions, wine, fidelity, and sorrow. The research is organized into an introduction, a preliminary section presenting the concept and origins of poetic language along with Ibn Zaydun's biography and the significance of his Nuniyyah, an applied study of the aforementioned semantic fields, and a conclusion summarizing the principal findings. The study reveals the vitality of language in Andalusian poetry and its capacity to convey meaning and genuine suffering; it also demonstrates how the poet's choice of address and speaker pronouns lent the poem dignity and grandeur, how his broad Islamic culture is manifested through Qur'anic and Prophetic allusions, and how his use of the vocabulary of courtship and separation expressed the sincerity of his experience.