Arabic Poetry

             

Arabic Poetry by Adam Crenshaw

 

 

Something that has fascinated me in Arabic culture is poetry.  Poetry in Arabic society is a very important thing.  I want to talk about what poetry was used for in both pre-Islamic and Islamic Arabic culture. 

            In pre-Islamic Arabic culture, poetry was an important way of communicating each tribe’s history.  Within the tribe there would always be a poet or Sha’ir.  The Sha’ir was an important man, not only because they would share their poetry but they would also chronicle the tribe’s history.  The Sha’ir was a kind of scribe who would record a tribe’s history through poetry.  At this time Arabic culture was a Bedouin culture and travelled from a source of water to another source of water, because of this they were very much an oral society.  Meaning that they did not write all their stories down they memorized them then recited them.  So it was necessary for the chronicler, or Sha’ir, to remember their stories in a fashion that would be easy to remember, like poetry.  They did manage to write some of their poetry down but not a lot survived.  Something that has survived time is the Mu’allaqat.  Mu’allaqat means “the hung poems” and the Mufaddaliyat which means “Al-Mufadda’s examination or anthology”.  It is a collection of eight poems that were hung on the wall of the Kaaba.  These poems are still kept in high regard because they are a great source of history; again, they are the recited histories of the people of that region.

            After Islam began to spread through the known world, poetry took on some different forms.  Poetry was given a major role in the political and religious realm of Islam.  The poet would recite and write poetry for the Caliph and his court.  Most of the poetry of this time really focused on worldly pleasures but in these still ran the theme of chronicling their history, and now in that mix was their new focus on their religion.  Now the Sufi Tradition of Islam took a more mystical view of poetry.  They really tied the use of poetry to their worship and their religion.  In their poetry they would speak of transcendence and other things that were considered heresy.  

            Something that these poets would pride themselves in was the complexity of their poems.  They would use all kinds of metaphors, puns and other things to further complicate their poetry.  There were several genres of poetry that these poets would write under.  Romantic Poetry was exactly what it sounds like, they were romantic poems.  They spoke of love stories and what courtly love was.  There was also Satirical Poetry.  Satirical poetry actually focused on things such as, anthropology, sociology, and psychology.  Not in the sense of writing a report in poetry but taking these studies and making them “interesting”.  What I mean by interesting is that the poets who wrote in this genre would often, through comedy, describe events that happened and were happening. 

            Poetry in Arabic Society was very important in several ways.   It was a history of their people, and it was a form of expression, a way for people to express their own religious and political views.  That is why Arabic poetry fascinates me. 

Sources:

1.    Poetry and History. The Value of Poetry in Reconstructing Arab History.  By Ramzi Baalbaki, Saleh Said Agha, Tarif Khaladi.  AUB.