(Lyall’s trans.)
In a poem by Al-Fadl (Lyall XIII) occurs the following:
“Each of us has his ground for the loathing his fellow moves,
A grace it is from the Lord that we hate you, ye us.”
Kurait, son of Unaif, poured scorn upon the people who weakly fail to avenge wrongdoing and holds up to contempt their softness in the words:
“They requite with forgiveness the wrong of those that do them wrong,
And the evil deeds of the evil they meet with kindness and love.”
(Lyall I.)
Poets form the most renowned class of men among the Arabs. Great enterprises were led by the word of the poet. To him they looked for stimulus and guidance in their raids, encampments, aspirations, disputes, loves and hates. The Arab is exceedingly sensitive to the spoken word of praise or blame. There is in him also a primitive response to the oracular, the mysterious and the magical. Speech is probably the most pretentious and commanding gift of man in early stages of culture. Even among highly civilized people it is the vehicle of the profoundest intellectual possessions and abilities. Human nature is impatient for the goods of the world. The slow process of causes has been brushed aside and resort has been had to magical means. Besides this there is the human hunger for the fairy-tale. We slip the leash of the real that we may run riot in the delights of a care-free world of the imagination. In that world the old time non-democratic spirit prevails and princes and powers and gorgeous effects are barbarously indulged. The poet is one of those who minister to us of this world of imagination.
A strong reason for the veneration which was felt for the spoken word in Arabia, as elsewhere in Semitic lands, is the innate conviction that the burden or message of the word is an entity for good or ill, independent of the human personality which serves as a medium. For it is thought that in the utterance of blessings or cursings supernatural powers seize upon the mind or the organs of speech of possessed personalities and speak effectively through them. Thus if a curse can be held back, or a blessing restrained, there is a non-existence of that fact instead of its existence to be reckoned with. The sting of satire set free by a poet’s eloquence is a veritable wound more serious than a physical stab. The humiliation and despair of an early Arab who fell under the shafts of a real poet were without remedy unless there was a superior poet to wreak adequate revenge. Certain of the old poets were warriors as well and represented the complete ideal. They were hardy rangers of the desert wastes, patient, chivalrous, vindictive, devotees of the claims of blood-kinship. The flourishing period of classical Arabian poetry was during the century and a half preceding the death of Muhammad.