We today may accept the definition of poetry given in the Four Discourses[204-A] (1162) of Nidhami I Arudi, for though he also believed in the importance of the trappings of verse, he had ecstasy primarily in mind. He defined poetry thus:
Poetry is that art whereby the poet arranges imaginary propositions, and adopts the deductions, with the result that he can make a little thing appear great and a great thing small, or cause good to appear in the garb of evil and evil in the garb of good. By acting on the imagination, he excites the faculties of anger and concupiscence in such a way that by his suggestion men's temperaments become affected with exaltation or depression; whereby he conduces to the accomplishment of great things in the order of the world.
What more effective definition could there be of the utilitarian power of art to take man out of himself and exalt him into a state of beneficial ecstasy?
Ibn Khaldun said:
Poetry is, of all the forms of discourses, that which the Arabs regarded as the noblest; they also made it the depository of their knowledge and their history, the testimony which would attest their virtues and faults, the store-house in which were found the greater part of their scientific views and their maxims of wisdom. The poetic faculty was as much deeply rooted in them as in all the other faculties they possessed.
He continues, that they have handled poetry so well, that one could deceive oneself and believe that this gift,
which is really an acquired art, was with them an innate one.
These remarkable words of Ibn Khaldun will help us to understand the famous saying that poetry was the register of the Arabs. Never before nor since has poetry been so interwoven with a nation's life. The stories of the competitions for prizes for composing poetry, of the happiness when a poet was born, of the importance assumed by the discussion and recitation of poetry among all classes, read to us like myths. Yet the fact that poetry should be part of the life of a passionate people who lived in the desert, free and untrammeled, is not strange. The Arabs themselves attribute also their great superiority in poetry to the beauty of their language, especially as spoken by the Bedouins in the desert. The great Arabian poet Abu Nuwas completed his education by sojourning a year among the Bedouins.
Another factor enhancing their poetry and one not to be ignored is that after 622 A.D. in post-Islamic times, poetry was rewarded by gifts. Hence the eulogy grew into prominence and the poets were fabulously rewarded for their poems. This, of course, led to fulsome and cringing eulogies. The caliph was the patron. When Mohammed appeared it seemed that poetry would die out, but it flourished more than ever. It was only after the Abbasid caliphate was exterminated by the Mongol invasion (1258 A.D.) that poetry declined in Arabia to such an extent that, as Ibn Khaldun says, no prominent man would deign to devote himself to it.
Although the Arabs excelled in various kinds of poetry, we think of them primarily as love poets.