The "Mufaddaliyat", as an anthology of complete "qasida"s (odes), differs from the "Hamasah", which comprises passages selected for brilliance, with the prosaic edited. Many poems in the "Mufaddaliyat" are fragments or incomplete, and even the longest have many lacunae. Mufaḍḍal al-Ḍabbī evidently strove to preserve the oral heritage in the poetic material memorized by the "rawis". He selects the best from oral-literary tradition and more comprehensively preserves material representative and characteristic of his age, unlike that appearing in the "Hamasah" by the brilliant Abu Tammam.