Imru' Al-Qais - Cultural Impact

Cultural Impact

To this day Imru' al-Qays remains the best-known of the pre-Islamic poets, and has been a source of literary and national inspiration for Arabic intellectuals all the way into the 20th century. Opening his entry in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Al-Tahir Ahmad Makki says this about Imru' al-Qais:

The Prince-Poet Imru' al-Qais, of the tribe of Kindah, is the first major Arabic literary figure. Verses from his Mu'allaqah (Hanging Poems), one of seven poems prized above all others by pre-Islamic Arabs, are still in the 20th century the most famous--and possibly the most cited--lines in all of Arabic literature. The Mu'allaqah is also an integral part of the linguistic, poetic and cultural education of all Arabic speakers.

Ibn Sallam al-Jumahi (d. 846 AD) said of Imru' al-Qais in his "Generations of the Stallion Poets" (Arabic: طبقات فحول الشعراء):

Imru' al-Qais was the originator of a great many things the Arabs considered beautiful, and which were adopted by other poets. These things include calling up his companions to halt, weeping over the ruins of abandoned campsites, describing his beloved with refinement and delicacy, and using language that was easy to understand. He was the first to compare women to gazelles and eggs, and to liken horses to birds of prey and to staves. He 'hobbled like a fleeing beast' and separated the erotic prelude from the body of his poem. In the coining of similitudes, he surpassed everybody in his generation.

Some historians have emphasized the historical significance of the Kindah monarchy as the first attempt to unite the central Arabian tribes before the success of Islam, and Imru' al-Qais' tragic place as one of the last Kindite princes. Others have focused on his colorful and violent life, putting it forward as an example of the immorality and brutality which existed in pre-Islamic Arabia.

Iraqi writer Madhhar al-Samarra'i (Arabic: مظهر السامرائي) in his 1993 book Imru' al-Qais: Poet and Lover (Arabic: إمرؤ القيس الشاعر العاشق), calls Imru' al-Qais the "poet of freedom":

The poet Imru' al-Qais had a gentle heart and a sensitive soul. He wanted the best not only for himself but for all the people of his society. The freedom that he struggled for was not confined to the romantic and erotic relations between him and his beloved Fatimah, and was not limited to his demands to lift the restrictions on sexual relations between men and women, but exceeded all this, so that he was singing for the freedom of all mankind-- and from this point we are able to name him, the Poet of Freedom.