“Poetry, Power and Propaganda at the Time of al-Mustanṣir (427/1036–487/1094)”, in Il mondo musulmano: religione, storia, letteratura. Studi in memoria di Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, a cura di L. Bottini e C. Baldazzi, Pubblicazioni dell’Istituto per l’Oriente C. A. Nallino, Roma, 2024, pp. 111-126.

The Fatimid madīḥ is strongly grounded on the Ismaili doctrine, based first and foremost on a mythic vision of History. The present contribution aims to analyse how the poetic discourse upon the power could express different degrees of alignment with the religious-political doctrine of the imamate, by comparing selected verses written by two contemporary authors at the court of al-Mustanṣir (427/1036-487/1094): the Persian-born poet al-Muʾayyad al-Šīrāzī (d. 470/1078), a strong supporter of the Ismaili doctrine, and the Siculo-Arab poet al-Ballanūbī (d. after 473/1080), strictly linked to the powerful vizier al-Yāzūrī (439/1048-450/1058).