Specific response guidelines:
For this discussion you are being asked to address at least two of the poems in your response.
Consider and discuss some of the following:
– What are some of the social and cultural values these poems espouse?
– What is seen as virtuous and what is seen as dishonorable? Why?
– How does religion figure in these poems?
– Why would these poems be considered important/valuable/relevant even after the time of Islam?
General response guidelines:
Here is what counts as addressing a reading: In order to get full credit, you will need to either quote a passage, explicitly refer to a specific line/ paragraph, or discuss an argument or concept brought up in the readings. You may respond to as many or as few of the prompts provided, as long as you are able to address the minimum number of readings.
Back to Medieval Source Book| ORB Main Page| Links to Other Medieval Sites| Medieval Sourcebook: Pre-Islamic Arabia: The Hanged Poems, before 622 CEThe spread of Islam after 622 CE meant the eventual dispersal of the Arabic languagefrom Morocco to Mesopotamia – a vast region where it displaced numerous otherlanguages. Arabic speakers have long noted their language’s poetic power and the primeexample is the Qu’ran. But Arabic literature did not begin with the Qu’ran.
In the ka’aba[the “cubic” temple in Mecca which was kept as the central shrine of Islam after all ther eligious statues had been removed], there were a number of poems “hanged” on thewalls. Some of these “hanged poems” were allowed to remain after the Muslim order wasestablished. They allow us some insight into the literature of pre-Islamic Arabia.It is common to note that the definite unit of such poem is the line. Each line was polishedto perfection, with overall poetic structure less important. The result is commonlydescribed as a “string of pearls”. Whether such an approach is correct is open toquestion, but it certainly impacts our reading of the Qur’an, a text which also seems to lackany overall organizational principle, but which is full of highly polished lines.
For modern discussion see
Peter Heath, Thirsty Sword; Sirat Antar And The Arabic Popular Epic,(University of Utah Press, 1996)
The Poem of Imru-Ul-Quais
The Poem of Antar
The Poem of Zuhair
