Somber conditions and reduced Arabic skill caused elaborate courtly prose to die out.

Evidence

The verbal extravagance, the pyrotechnics, of saj seems not to have suited the somber situation of Spain’s Muslims at this period. (And perhaps the recondite vocabulary so beloved of some of those who used the form, al- Hariri among them, placed the texts beyond the limited linguistic ability of many.) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 759