Stylistic verbal extravagance died out because it fit neither hardship nor reduced Arabic skill.

Evidence

There is just one single maqama by this author, of which we can say it was almost certainly read by Moriscos because it is copied out in the very Vatican manuscript (Borgiano arabo 171) that contains the key Oran fatwa. 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

Categorization

• QUESTION: The parenthetical claim that recondite vocabulary placed texts beyond Moriscos’ limited Arabic is asserted tentatively — worth chasing for more evidence.
• SEED: Article angle: artistic genre choice as a barometer of cultural duress — when verbal pyrotechnics die out because they don’t fit a community’s situation.