The above translations, with notes and remarks, have been reprinted by
Mr. W.A. Clouston, in his 'Arabian Poetry for English Readers,' at
Glasgow in 1881, and is a work well worthy of a perusal by any persons
who may be interested in the subject.
The names of the three ancient Arab poets considered to have been possessed of equal talent with the authors of the Mua'llakat, are Nabiga, Al-Kama, and Al-Aasha, and some specimens of their composition, as also of those of other pre-Islamite poets, are to be found in the fifteenth volume, No. 39, pages 65-108, of the 'Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,' translated by Mr. E. Rehatsek in 1881.
Second Period.
From Muhammad and his immediate successors (Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and
Ali), through the Omaiyide and Abbaside dynasties, to the end of the
Khalifate of Baghdad, A.D. 1258.
The legislator of Islam, whose era began on the 16th July, A.D. 622 (though his actual departure from Mecca has been calculated to have taken place on the 20th June, A.D. 622), is here to be considered not from an historical, but from a poetical point of view. Although Muhammad despised the metres in which the bards of his nation chanted their Kasidas, and himself gave utterance in the name of Heaven to the inspirations of his genius only in richly-modulated and rhymed prose, nevertheless, according to the Oriental idea, he was regarded as a poet. Those who declare that he was not a poet overlook the circumstance that he was vehemently assailed by contemporary poets, who attempted to degrade his heaven-inspired Surahs into mere poetical fables. He himself protested against this insinuation, and declared at the end of the 26th Surah, entitled 'The Poets,' that those are in error who believe poets, as follows:
'And those who err follow the poets; dost thou not see how they roam (as bereft of their senses) through every valley (of the imagination) and that they say things which they do not perform? … Except those who believe, and do good works, and remember God frequently, and those who defend themselves after they have been unjustly treated by poets in their lampoons, and they who act unjustly shall know hereafter with what treatment they shall be treated.'
These lines are important as far as the history of literature is concerned. They are written against inimical poets, but distinguish the friendly ones, who, taking the part of Muhammad, repaid the lampooning poets in their own coin.
Some of the hostile poets, such as Hobeira and the woman Karitha, were killed at the taking of Mecca, whilst Zibary and the woman Hertlemah saved their lives only by making a profession of Islam. Muhammad had, however, also his panegyrists, the chief of whom was Ka'b bin Zoheir, the composer of the celebrated Kasida called 'The Poem of the Mantle,' as a reward for which the Prophet threw his own cloak over him, under the following circumstances, as related by Mr. J.W. Redhouse in the preface to his translation of the poem published in the 'Arabian Poetry for English Readers'[1] alluded to above.
[Footnote 1: In this same work will also be found a
translation by Mr. Redhouse of another poem, also called
'The Poem of the Mantle,' but written by Sharaf-uddin
Muhammad Al-Busiri, who was born A.D. 1211, and died between
A.D. 1291 and 1300.]
Ka'b was a son of Zoheir, already mentioned as the author of one of the pre-Islamite poems known as the 'Mua'llakat.' He had a brother named Bujeir, and, like their father, both brothers were good poets. Bujeir was first converted, and embraced the faith of Islam. Ka'b was angry at this, and composed a lampoon on his brother, on the Prophet, and on their new religion. This he sent to his brother by the mouth of a messenger. Bujeir repeated it to Muhammad, who commented on it as favourable to the new faith and to himself, but at the same time passed a sentence of death on the satirist.