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The Detribalization of Arabic Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Arieh Loya
Arieh Loya
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

The forms, themes and patterns of classical Arabic poetry were laid down in the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam. Indeed the oldest poem of which we have any record dates back to the period of Jâhiliyya, a derogatory term meaning ‘ignorance’ coined by the early Muslims to denote the state of religious and moral depravity of pre-Islamic Arabs. This period covers scarcely more than a century and a half (c. a.d. 500–622). Yet when the Arabs first sprang onto the stage of world history to carve an empire for themselves, they already had an extremely complex and refined poetic art. This remarkable phenomenon has baffled the student of Arabic literature and history: ‘The most striking feature in Arabic literature is its unexpectedness’ remarks Gibb, while Goitein refers to it as ‘the miracle of pre-Islamic poetry and literary language’. The Jâhili poets, though springing from primitive and illiterate nomadic tribes, were no beginners declaiming shaky lines in a mixture of dialects in prevalence at the time. These were a host of poets erupting all over northern Arabia, from Syria to Yemen and from the fringes of Iraq to the borders of Egypt, masterfully reciting highly developed qasîdas (odes) in one and the same language, betraying little of the dialects of their region. Above all, their poetry, vigorous and vivid as it was in general, was cast in the same, steel structure of a set of complex metrical schemes.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1974 , pp. 202 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 202 note 1 Gibb, H. A. R., Arabic Literature, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 13.Google Scholar

page 202 note 2 Goitein, S. D., Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966), p. 6.Google Scholar

page 202 note 3 Dr Tâhâ Husayn, the eminent Egyptian scholar, following D. S. Margoliouth and other European scholars (cf. Brockelmann's GAL 2, 1) made a brilliant attempt to explain both the absence of dialect and the masterful metrical schemes of Jâhilî poetry by claiming that the greater part of this poetry was manhûl, i.e. composed by others and attributed to the Jâhilîs. Husayn believes that many of the so-called Jâhilî poems were composed during the first two centuries of Islam and attributed to Jâhilî poets for tribal, political or religious reasons. Most of the scholars in the field of Arabic literature, however, are of the opinion that these contentions do not stand on sound scientific grounds. For Husayn's thesis, see his book on pre-Islamic poetry Fî'l-Shi'r al-Jâhilî, republished under the title Fi'l-Adab al-Jâhilî (Cairo: Dâr al-Ma'ârif), 1927.Google Scholar

page 203 note 1 Unlike in Western poetry, the Arabic meter follows a pattern of long and short vowels. The Tawîl, one of the most common of Arabic meters, adheres to the following pattern: u—/u—u—/u—‖u—/u—u—/u—/u—u— (‘u’ stands for short, ‘—’ for long vowels).Google Scholar

page 203 note 2 Lewis, Bernard, The Arabs in History (New York: Harper Brothers, 1960), p. 142.Google Scholar

page 203 note 3 Another qualification is the existence of the niyya, or intention to compose poetry. This made it possible for certain verses of the Qur'ân to be excluded from the category of poetry, even though they could be scanned according to one Arabic meter.Google Scholar

page 203 note 4 Ja'far, Abu'l-Faraj Qudâma b., Naqd al- Shi'r, ed. Mustafâ, Kamâl (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khânchî, 1963), p. 66.Google Scholar

page 203 note 5 Ibid. p. 19.

page 204 note 1 Ibid. p. 146.

page 204 note 2 al-'Askarî, Abû-Hilâl al-Hasan b. Sahl, Kitâb al-Sinâ'atayn (Baghdâd, 1952), p. 103.Google Scholar

page 204 note 3 Arab poets of the Mahjar (America), of whom we shall speak later, are excepted from this general statement.Google Scholar

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page 205 note 2 I am indebted to Professor Bayly Winder, of New York University, for this suggestion.Google Scholar

page 205 note 3 Moscati, Sabatino, The Face of the Ancient Orient (New York: Doubleday, 1962), p. 32.Google Scholar

page 205 note 4 For adherence to tradition in literature of the Chinese and Indians I am indebted to Professor Derk Bodde of the University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar

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page 206 note 2 The case of 'Antara b. Shaddâd, who praised himself for his courage and prowess, is exceptional. His father refused him the honor of his name and therefore that of his tribe, due to the fact that 'Antara's mother was a non-Arab black slave. 'Antara had thus no tribe to glorify.Google Scholar

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page 209 note 1 Nicholson, R. A., A Literary History of the Arabs (Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 289.Google Scholar

page 209 note 2 Ibid.

page 209 note 3 Badî' literally means the strange and the novel and designates verbal ornamentations in metaphor and simile by tropes and antitheses and the exploitation of the vast resources of Arabic morphology.Google Scholar

page 211 note 1 al-Jundî, Anwar, Al-Shi'r al-'Arabî al-Mu'âsir (Cairo: Matba'at al-Risâla, 196?) p: 241.Google Scholar

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page 213 note 2 Ibid. p. 446.

page 213 note 3 Nicholson, R. A., A Literary History of the Arabs, p. 470.Google Scholar

page 214 note 1 On the same month that Sayyâb published his poem in the new style, a young Iraqi poetess, Nâzik al-Malâ'ika, a friend of his, published a poem based not on the couplet but on the, stanza as a unit. Each of Nâzik's stanzas contained the same number of feet, and each ended with a refrain. This form was already practiced by the mahjarî poets, who called it the ‘new muwashshah’. Sayyâb, of course, did not believe in such restrictions. Nâzik's claim to be the first innovator of modern Arabic poetry does not, to our mind, have a very valid justification.Google Scholar