Arabic Poetry - Pre-Islamic Poetry

Pre-Islamic Poetry

The first major poet in the pre-Islamic era is Imru' al-Qais, the last king of the kingdom of Kindah. Although most of the poetry of that era was not preserved, what remains is well regarded as the finest of Arabic poetry to date. In addition to the eloquence and artistic value, pre-Islamic poetry constitutes as 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 . Arabic poetry (Arabic: الشِعْر العَرَبي / ALA-LC: ash-shi‘ru al-‘Arabīyu) is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that. Arabic poetry is categorized into two main types, rhymed, or measured, and prose, with the former greatly preceding the latter. The rhymed poetry falls within fifteen different meters collected and explained by al-Farahidi in The Science of `Arud. Al-Akhfash, a student of al-Farahidi, later added one more meter to make them sixteen. The meters of the rhythmical poetry are known in Arabic as "seas" (بحور). The measuring unit of the "seas" is known as "taf`ila" (تفعيلة) with every sea containing a certain number of taf’ilas that the poet has to observe in every verse (bayt بيت) of the poem. The measuring procedure of a poem is very rigorous. Sometimes adding or removing a consonant or a vowel can shift the bayt from one meter to another. Also, in rhymed poetry, every bayt has to end with the same rhyme (qafiya) throughout the poem. 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.

Alongside the sha'ir, and often as his poetic apprentice, was the rawi or reciter. 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 ibn Abî Sûlmâ, Zuhayr trained his son Ka'b bin Zuhayr, Ka'b trained al-Hutay'ah, al-Hutay'ah trained Jamil Buthaynah and Jamil trained Kuthayyir 'Azzah.

Among the most famous poets of the pre-Islamic era are Imru' al-Qais, Samaw'al ibn 'Adiya, al-Nabighah al-Dhubyani, Tarafah ibn al 'Abd, and Zuhayr ibn Abî Sûlmâ. Other poets, such as Ta'abbata Sharran, al-Shanfara, 'Urwah 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. Some of these attacks on the values of the clan and of the tribe were meant to be ironic, teasing the listeners only in order finally to endorse all that the members of the audience held most dear about their communal values and way of life. While such poets were identified closely with their own tribes, others, such as al-A'sha, were known for their wanderings in search of work from whoever needed poetry.

The very best of these early poems were collected in the 8th century as the Mu'allaqat meaning "the hung poems" (because they were hung on or in the Kaaba) and the Mufaddaliyat meaning al-Mufaddal's examination or anthology. The Mu'allaqat also aimed to be the definitive source of the era's output with only a single example of the work of each of the so-called "seven renowned ones", although different versions differ in which "renowned ones" they chose. The Mufaddaliyat on the other hand contains rather a random collection.

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 (البيت) 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. This concept in Arabic poetry is referred to as “الوقوف على الأطلال” ("standing at the ruins") because the poet would often start his poem by saying that he stood at the ruins of his beloved, a kind of ubi sunt.