Mohammed Farid Wajdi's literary personality and maqamat

In this study, literary personality and Maqâmat of Mohammed Farid Wajdi who was prominent Egyptian intellectual in the 20th century, has been discussed. The resource which constitutes a basis for the study is his work named as al-Wajdiyyat which consists of eighteen Maqamat. At first, information about the life story, works and literary personality of Mohammed Farid Wajdi have been provided in our study which constitute an introduction and three chapter, and then Wajdi's eighteen Maqamat have been reviewed in terms of content and style characteristics. Content of the Maqamat has been reviewed with respect to its ravi (narrator) and personnel cadre, divisions, subjects, plot and elements of the setting. Literary style of al-Wajdiyyat have been examined under the headings of internal rhyme, similitude, metaphor, description, strange words, citation from ayat, hadiths and poems. Consequently, it has been observed that, in Wajdi's Maqamat, there is a narrator (his name is Vicdan) who tells the plot, although there is variety of heroes the prominent hero is el-Hakim b. Mürşid who is the mentor of Vicdan, there is a theme of journey in the introduction sections of Maqamat, extraordinary experiences of narrator are mentioned in the body, and in the conclusion chapter real personality of the hero is revealed. The subjects addressed in the al-Wajdiyyat are determined as such; religious, philosophical, sufistic, moral and social topics. It has been found that rhymed prose is used in the Maqamat, and literary elements such as similitude, metaphor and description and also strange words are covered, and citations from ayat, hadiths and poems are included. It is observed that Maqamat, which consists of poems written by Wajdi, has been differentiated from the Maqamat of al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri which are the samples of classical Maqamat, in terms of certain content and literary style characteristics.