Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry

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Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry refers to the corpus of Arabic poetry composed in pre-Islamic Arabia in the Arabic language roughly between 540 and 620 AD.

One of the first major poets in the pre-Islamic era is Imru' al-Qais, the last king of the kingdom of Kinda. Although most of the poetry of that era was not preserved, what remains is well regarded as among the finest Arabic poetry to date. In addition to the eloquence and artistic value, pre-Islamic poetry constitutes a major source for classical Arabic language both in grammar and vocabulary, and as a reliable historical record of the political and cultural life of the time.[1]

Poetry held an important position in pre-Islamic society with the poet or sha'ir filling the role of historian, soothsayer and propagandist. Words in praise of the tribe (qit'ah) and lampoons denigrating other tribes (hija') seem to have been some of the most popular forms of early poetry. The sha'ir represented an individual tribe's prestige and importance in the Arabian peninsula, and mock battles in poetry or zajal would stand in lieu of real wars. 'Ukaz, a market town not far from Mecca, would play host to a regular poetry festival where the craft of the sha'irs would be exhibited.[1]

Alongside the sha'ir, and often as his poetic apprentice, was the rawi or reciter.[2] The job of the rawi was to learn the poems by heart and to recite them with explanations and probably often with embellishments. This tradition allowed the transmission of these poetic works and the practice was later adopted by the huffaz for their memorisation of the Qur'an. At some periods there have been unbroken chains of illustrious poets, each one training a rawi as a bard to promote his verse, and then to take over from them and continue the poetic tradition. For example, Tufayl trained 'Awas ibn Hajar, 'Awas trained Zuhayr, Zuhayr trained his son Ka`b, Ka`b trained al-Hutay'ah, al-Hutay'ah trained Jamil Buthaynah and Jamil trained Kuthayyir `Azza.

Major collections[edit]

The five major collections of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry were made in the 8th and 9th centuries and are:

Editions and translations[edit]

  • Arberry, The Seven Odes: The First Chapter in Arabic Literature, Routledge, 1957. Available.
  • Elmeligi, Wessam. The Poetry of Arab Women from the Pre-Islamic Age to Andalusia, Routledge, 2019.
  • Lyall, Charles James (ed.), The Mufaddaliyat, Clarendon University Press, 1918. Available.
  • Lyall, Charles James (ed.), Translations of Ancient Arabian Poetry, chiefly pre-Islamic, Hyperion Press, 1981. Available.
  • Johnson, Frank (ed.). The Seven Poems Suspended in the Temple at Mecca, Education Society's Steam Press, 1893. Available.
  • King Fahad National Library, The Mu'allaqat for Millennials: Pre-Islamic Arabic Golden Odes, King Abdullazizz Center For World Culture, 2020. Available.
  • Lambden, Stephen. "The Kitab al-asma' II - Select Excerpts in Translation." Available.
  • Montgomery, James E. (ed.), War Songs by ʿAntarah ibn Shaddād, Library of Arabic Literature, 2018.
  • Montgomery, James E. (ed.), Diwan 'Antarah ibn Shaddad: A Literary-Historical Study, Library of Arabic Literature, 2018.

Poets[edit]

Among the most famous poets of the pre-Islamic era are Imru' al-Qais, Samaw'al ibn 'Adiya, al-Nabigha, Tarafa, Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma, and Antarah ibn Shaddad. Other poets, such as Ta'abbata Sharran, al-Shanfara, Urwa ibn al-Ward, were known as su'luk or vagabond poets, much of whose works consisted of attacks on the rigidity of tribal life and praise of solitude.[3]

Jewish poets[edit]

Islamic compilations of pre-Islamic poetry occasionally mention Jewish poets, although it is difficult to assess their authenticity[4] and, compared to epigraphs, are more difficult to date and are subject to later influences of Islamicization.[5] The Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl al-shuʿarā ("The generations of the most outstanding poets"), composed by the Basran traditionalist and philologist Muḥummad ibn Sallām al-Jumaḥī (d. 846), records a list of Jewish poets. The Arabian/Arab antiquities collector Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (d. 976) also has scattered reference to eleven Jewish poets in his Kitāb al-agānī ("Book of Songs"). The poets they refer to are as follows, followed by (J) if mentioned by al-Jumahi and (I) if they are mentioned by al-Isfahani:

The poetry ascribed to these figures rarely make reference to precise historical details or religious expressions,[7] although some poems ascribed to al-Samaw'al in the Asma'iyyat collection are explicitly religious.[8] In addition, al-Jumahi offers very little by way of biography for each of these figures other than to recount popular anecdotes that a few are associated with. Al-Isfahani gives more detailed biographical information. For example, he says Al-Samaw’al ibn ‘Ādiyā was a native of Tayma (in northwestern Arabia) whose father had ties to the Ghassanids. He lived in a family home often called a castle and whose name was al-Ablaq. Popular stories described his fidelity and loyalty, such as one where he refuses the surrender of the possessions of Imru' al-Qais to Imru's enemies despite their attempt to besiege his castle. Asides from Samaw'al, the only other Jewish poet to earn some renown was al-Rabī‘ ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq, chief of the Naḍir tribe. The earliest sources make no mention of this figure, but only his son Kināna. Instead, it is only with the work of al-Isfahani that the exploits of al-Rabī‘ are described.[9]

Authenticity[edit]

Initial rejection of the authenticity of the corpus of pre-Islamic poetry came in the early 20th century, from a paper by D.S. Margoliouth in 1925[10] and the book On Pre-Islamic Poetry by Taha Husayn in 1926.[11][12] Use of pre-Islamic poetry in the field of Quranic studies also declined compared to earlier eras after the skeptical turn of the field in the 1970s, a trend lamented by a number of relevant experts.[13] Most work from previous decades on the poetry as a source is now obsolete, however.[14] Margoliouth argued the monotheism of the poetry was out of place, but archaeological findings have since shown monotheism was widespread in pre-Islamic Arabia, contrary to later representations. Margoliouth also relied on the assumption that authentic pre-Islamic poetry would need to share the dialect of the Quran, which is no longer accepted.[15]

Early responses to sweeping rejections of the authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry came from Arafat[16][17][18] and, in recent decades, historians have retreated from blanket skepticism of these poems, viewing the majority of them as potentially pre-Islamic in origin.[19] A recent study of the toponyms mentioned in pre-Islamic poetry suggests that they refer to real places, but that these places were also unknown in later periods, indicating that they originate in periods at least a few generations prior to their compilation into the major poetry collections when knowledge of these place-names had not yet been lost. The grammatical forms of the archaic place names also indicates that the transmission of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry was in written form, as opposed to oral form, from an earlier period than previously assumed, at least by the last 1st century AH.[20][21] Another investigation indicates the general authenticity of the corpus with respect to how it trats the rite of Hajj. References to Hajj in pre-Islamic poetry are relatively few, especially in comparison to the number of references in Muslim-era poetry, and are concentrated among poets living in and near Mecca but largely absent from the poetry of authors from northern and eastern Arabia (contrasting Islamic-era histories which conceived of the Hajj as a pan-Arabian ritual of pre-Islamic Arabia). They contain references to archaic names and practices absent from Muslim-era ritual, and, like the Quran but unlike later Arabic-era historiographies, describe the Hajj not as a practice involving a polytheistic pantheon but instead centered around the worship of Allāh.[22] Structural features of the poetry may have also helped its preservation, such as the meter and rhyme.[23][24]

A number of criteria have been proposed to distinguish authentic from inauthentic pre-Islamic poetry: namely, lines attributed to pre-Islamic poetry are suspect if they use or depend on overtly Quranic or Islamic phraseology, or if they are recruited by the authors that record them as support for specific political or exegetical positions. Likewise, heightened confidence might be placed on poems or lines which cluster with other poems or lines absent any suspicious material, lack anachronisms, and comport with beliefs held by pre-Islamic Arabs, especially when those are the views attributed by the Quran to its opponents but differ from the types of views attributed to Muhammad's opponents in later Arabic histories.[25][26]

Comparison with post-Islamic poetry[edit]

There are several characteristics that distinguish pre-Islamic poetry from the poetry of later times. One of these characteristics is that in pre-Islamic poetry more attention was given to the eloquence and the wording of the verse than to the poem as whole. This resulted in poems characterized by strong vocabulary and short ideas but with loosely connected verses. A second characteristic is the romantic or nostalgic prelude with which pre-Islamic poems would often start. In these preludes, a thematic unit called "nasib," the poet would remember his beloved and her deserted home and its ruins.[27]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ a b Stetkevych 1993.
  2. ^ Allen 2005, p. 114.
  3. ^ Allen 2005, p. 109.
  4. ^ Hoyland 2015, p. 520– 521.
  5. ^ Kjaer 2022.
  6. ^ Lindstedt 2023, p. 62–64.
  7. ^ Hoyland 2011, p. 91–92.
  8. ^ Hoyland 2015, p. 519.
  9. ^ Hoyland 2015, p. 512–515.
  10. ^ Margoliouth 1925.
  11. ^ Husayn 1926.
  12. ^ Ayalon 2009.
  13. ^ Sinai 2019, p. 2–3.
  14. ^ Lindstedt 2023, p. 23–24, 24n82.
  15. ^ Lindstedt 2023, p. 23–24.
  16. ^ Arafat 1958.
  17. ^ Arafay 1966.
  18. ^ Arafat 1970.
  19. ^ Webb 2023, p. 35–36.
  20. ^ Webb 2020.
  21. ^ Webb 2023, p. 36n9.
  22. ^ Webb 2023.
  23. ^ Sinai 2024, p. 54–55.
  24. ^ Lindstedt 2023, p. 23.
  25. ^ Sinai 2019, p. 19–26.
  26. ^ Lindstedt 2023, p. 26–27.
  27. ^ Allen 2005, p. 126.

Sources[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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