A vernacular Arabic poetic form seeded the entire European courtly love tradition

Evidence

Muneeza Shamsie notes how “all good literature is trans-geographical,” going on to show how the spread of Islam created new literary genres as preexisting forms met and melded. She cites the example, given by Maria Rosa Menocal, of how the vernacular Arabic poetic form muwashshaha arose from Hispano-Arabic roots and spread to influence Provençal troubadour poetry and thereby the entire European medieval tradition of courtly love poetry (Hybrid Tapestries: The Development of Pakistani Literature in English [Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 2017], 2-3). — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 544

Categorization

• XREF: Direct counterexample to the ‘clash of civilizations’ frame — a concrete instance of literary cross-pollination across the supposed Muslim/European divide.
• SHARE: A perfect tidbit for a comparatist or medievalist friend working on troubadour poetry or the romance tradition.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the anti-protectionist literary-exchange argument that underpins how novels spread rather than just mirror their own culture.