University of Bucharest

either mayy or māy in H~ūzistān. 22 And the second word is tāya ‗shelter‘, which
seems to be very rare in the dialects of the region. The verb tawa originally means
‗to stay at a place‘, and tāwa and tāya stand for ‗shelter of camels‘. 23 In our poem
it means ‗shelter‘ in a broader sense.
3.3. Another example of a Classical Arabic form is to be seen in a verse by
Mullā H}abīb S}ayyāh}ī Sālimī. 24 He is a descendant of the third Shi‗ite Imam,
H}usayn and was born in 1969 in a village not far from Bustān. He has been
writing poems from an early age, and a huge number of his poems are in praise of
the third Imam. Here is only one of his mis}rā‗s.
1. Tabqā (i)b-had}am wa b-dilla wa-ms}āyib // …
‗You [will] stay in oppression, in submissiveness and disasters‘.
The word tabqā is clearly classical, with the retention of the qāf, and in the
Arabic text even an ‘alif maqs}ūra has been put on the final yā‘ to mark length
( ىٰقبت ).
But in another poem composed by Íaydar Maš‗alī from the famous Bayt
Maš‗al clan 25 , the real dialectal version of the indefinite form of the verb baqiya
can be found.
1. (‘Ağrak ‗alā l-Bārī l-wāh}id il-maškūr) // Yabga hnāk tilgā(h) ib-
ma‗ālī(h).
(‗Your reward is [incumbent] upon the Creator, the One, to whom one
shall be grateful) // If he stays there, you will find him in his excellent
deeds‘.
In this line the Arabic text writes g as a reflex of the qāf, and the final -a is
written with a hā‘ (هگتي) which corresponds to its dialectal pronunciation.
3.4. The following line is from Sa‗d ibn Ğabbār Suwārī. 26 He was born in
the first quarter of the 20th century in a small village in the border region of
Bustān. Although he remained illiterate for his whole life, he has composed
22 Ingham 1982, 173 and 174.
23 Al-Munğid 1997, 76.
24 Pūr-Kāz}im 1378/1999, 442-443.
25 Pūr-Kāz}im 1378/1999, 468.
26 Pūr-Kāz}im 1378/1999, 474-475.
46