Pre-Islamic literature:
The period before the writing of the Qur'an and the rise of Islam is known to Muslims as Jahiliyyah or period of ignorance. Whilst this ignorance refers mainly to religious ignorance, there is little written literature before this time, although significant oral tradition is postulated. Tales like those about Sinbad and Antar bin Shaddad were probably current, but were recorded later. The final decades of the 6th century, however, begin to show the flowering of a lively written tradition. This tradition was captured over two centuries later with two important compilations of the Mu'allaqat and the Mufaddaliyat. These collections probably give us a biased picture of the writings of the time as only the best poems are preserved; some of the poems may represent only the best part of a long poem. However they can be stories and novels and even fairy tales as well.
Pre-Islamic poetry:
The pre-Islamic poetry is commonly referred to in Arabic as "الشعر الجاهلي" or Jahili poetry, literally "the poetry of the period of ignorance".
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 Abī Sūlmā, 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.
Singers who simply performed works included Ibrahim al-Mawsili, his son Ishaq al-Mawsili and Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi son of caliph al-Mahdi. Many stories about these early singers were retold in the Kitab al-Aghani or Book of Songs by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani.
Among the most famous poets of the pre-Islamic era are Imru' al-Qais, al-Nabighah al-Dhubyani, Tarafah ibn al 'Abd , and Zuhayr ibn Abī Sūlmā. 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. It 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; apparently all that was remembered and perhaps some that was only produced in the 8th century and was not truly pre-Islamic.
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 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 starts his poem by saying that he stood at the ruins of his beloved, a kind of ubi sunt. This characteristic was later dropped from the Arabic poem and some Arab poets, such as Abu Nuwas, became a target of mockery of pre-Islamic poetry.
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pre-Islamic Arabian literature (Read 1171 times)
