Farazdaq and Jarír are intimately connected by a peculiar rivalry—"Arcades ambo—id est, blackguards both." For many years they engaged in a public scolding-match (muháját), and as neither had any scruples on the score of decency, the foulest abuse was bandied to and fro between them—abuse, however, which is redeemed from vulgarity by its literary excellence, and by the marvellous skill which the satirists display in manipulating all the vituperative resources of the Arabic language. Soon these 'Flytings' (Naqá’iḍ) The Naqá’iḍ of Jarír and Farazdaq. were recited everywhere, and each poet had thousands of enthusiastic partisans who maintained that he was superior to his rival.[454] One day Muhallab b. Abí Sufra, the governor of Khurásán, who was marching against the Azáriqa, a sect of the Khárijites, heard a great clamour and tumult in the camp. On inquiring its cause, he found that the soldiers had been fiercely disputing as to the comparative merits of Jarír and Farazdaq, and desired to submit the question to his decision. "Would you expose me," said Muhallab, "to be torn in pieces by these two dogs? I will not decide between them, but I will point out to you those who care not a whit for either of them. Go to the Azáriqa! They are Arabs General interest in poetry. who understand poetry and judge it aright." Next day, when the armies faced each other, an Azraqite named ‘Abída b. Hilál stepped forth from the ranks and offered single combat. One of Muhallab's men accepted the challenge, but before fighting he begged his adversary to inform him which was the better poet—Farazdaq or Jarír? "God confound you!" cried ‘Abída, "do you ask me about poetry instead of studying the Koran and the Sacred Law?" Then he quoted a verse by Jarír and gave judgment in his favour.[455] This incident affords a striking proof that the taste for poetry, far from being confined to literary circles, was diffused throughout the whole nation, and was cultivated even amidst the fatigues and dangers of war. Parallel instances occur in the history of the Athenians, the most gifted people of the West, and possibly elsewhere, but imagine British soldiers discussing questions of that kind over the camp-fires!
Akhṭal joined in the fray. His sympathies were with Farazdaq, and the naqá’iḍ which he and Jarír composed against each other have come down to us. All these poets, like their Post-islamic brethren generally, were professional encomiasts, greedy, venal, and ready to revile any one who would not purchase their praise. Some further account of them may be interesting to the reader, especially as the anecdotes related by their biographers throw many curious sidelights on the manners of the time.
The oldest of the trio, Akhṭal (Ghiyáth b. Ghawth) of Taghlib, was a Christian, like most of his tribe—they had Akhṭal. long been settled in Mesopotamia—and remained in that faith to the end of his life, though the Caliph ‘Abdu ’l-Malik is said to have offered him a pension and 10,000 dirhems in cash if he would turn Moslem. His religion, however, was less a matter of principle than of convenience, and to him the supreme virtue of Christianity lay in the licence which it gave him to drink wine as often as he pleased. The stories told of him suggest grovelling devoutness combined with very easy morals, a phenomenon familiar to the student of mediæval Catholicism. It is related by one who was touring in Syria that he found Akhṭal confined in a church at Damascus, and pleaded his cause with the priest. The latter stopped beside Akhṭal and raising the staff on which he leaned—for he was an aged man—exclaimed: "O enemy of God, will you again defame people and satirise them and caluminate chaste women?" while the poet humbled himself and promised never to repeat the offence. When asked how it was that he, who was honoured by the Caliph and feared by all, behaved so submissively to this priest, he answered, "It is religion, it is religion."[456] On another occasion, seeing the Bishop pass, he cried to his wife who was then pregnant, "Run after him and touch his robe." The poor woman only succeeded in touching the tail of the Bishop's ass, but Akhṭal consoled her with the remark, "He and the tail of his ass, there's no difference!"[457] It is characteristic of the anti-Islamic spirit which appears so strongly in the Umayyads that their chosen laureate and champion should have been a Christian who was in truth a lineal descendant of the pagan bards. Pious Moslems might well be scandalised when he burst unannounced into the Caliph's presence, sumptuously attired in silk and wearing a cross of gold which was suspended from his neck by a golden chain, while drops of wine trickled from his beard,[458] but their protests went unheeded at the court of Damascus, where nobody cared whether the author of a fine verse was a Moslem or a Christian, and where a poet was doubly welcome whose religion enabled him to serve his masters without any regard to Muḥammadan sentiment; so that, for example, when Yazíd I wished to take revenge on the people of Medína because one of their poets had addressed amatory verses to his sister, he turned to Akhṭal, who branded the Anṣár, the men who had brought about the triumph of Islam, in the famous lines—
"Quraysh have borne away all the honour and glory, And baseness alone is beneath the turbans of the Anṣár."[459]
We must remember that the poets were leaders of public opinion; their utterances took the place of political pamphlets or of party oratory for or against the Government of the day. On hearing Akhṭal's ode in praise of the Umayyad dynasty,[460] ‘Abdu ’l-Malik ordered one of his clients to conduct the author through the streets of Damascus and to cry out, "Here is the poet of the Commander of the Faithful! Here is the best poet of the Arabs!"[461] No wonder that he was a favourite at court and such an eminent personage that the great tribe of Bakr used to invite him to act as arbitrator whenever any controversy arose among them.[462] Despite the luxury in which he lived, his wild Bedouin nature pined for freedom, and he frequently left the capital to visit his home in the desert, where he not only married and divorced several wives, but also threw himself with ardour into the feuds of his clan. We have already noticed the part which he played in the literary duel between Jarír and Farazdaq. From his deathbed he sent a final injunction to Farazdaq not to spare their common enemy.
Akhṭal is commended by Arabian critics for the number and excellence of his long poems, as well as for the purity, polish, and correctness of his style. Abú ‘Ubayda put him first among the poets of Islam, while the celebrated collector of Pre-islamic poetry, Abú ‘Amr b. al-‘Alá, declared that if Akhṭal had lived a single day in the Pagan Age he would not have preferred any one to him. His supremacy in panegyric was acknowledged by Farazdaq, and he himself claims to have surpassed all competitors in three styles, viz., panegyric, satire, and erotic poetry; but there is more justification for the boast that his satires might be recited virginibus—he does not add puerisque—without causing a blush.[463]
Hammám b. Ghálib, generally known as Farazdaq, belonged to the tribe of Tamím, and was born at Baṣra towards the end of ‘Umar's Caliphate, His grandfather, Ṣa‘ṣa‘a, won renown in Pre-islamic times by ransoming the lives of female infants whom their parents had condemned to die (on account of Farazdaq. which he received the title, Muḥyi ’l-Maw’údát, 'He who brings the buried girls to life'), and his father was likewise imbued with the old Bedouin traditions of liberality and honour, which were rapidly growing obsolete among the demoralised populace of ‘Iráq. Farazdaq was a mauvais sujet of the type represented by François Villon, reckless, dissolute, and thoroughly unprincipled: apart from his gift of vituperation, we find nothing in him to admire save his respect for his father's memory and his constant devotion to the House of ‘Alí, a devotion which he scorned to conceal; so that he was cast into prison by the Caliph Hishám for reciting in his presence a glowing panegyric on ‘Alí's grandson, Zaynu ’l-‘Ábidín. The tragic fate of Ḥusayn at Karbalá affected him deeply, and he called on his compatriots to acquit themselves like men—
"If ye avenge not him, the son of the best of you, Then fling, fling the sword away and naught but the spindle ply."[464]
While still a young man, he was expelled from his native city in consequence of the lampoons which he directed against a noble family of Baṣra, the Banú Nahshal. Thereupon he fled to Medína, where he plunged into gallantry and dissipation until a shameless description of one of his intrigues again drew upon him the sentence of banishment. His poems contain many references to his cousin Nawár, whom, by means of a discreditable trick, he forced to marry him when she was on the point of giving her hand to another. The pair were ever quarrelling, and at last Farazdaq consented to an irrevocable divorce, which was witnessed by Ḥasan of Baṣra, the famous theologian. No sooner was the act complete than Farazdaq began to wish it undone, and he spoke the following verses:—[465]
"I feel repentance like al-Kusa‘í,[466] Now that Nawár has been divorced by me. She was my Paradise which I have lost, Like Adam when the Lord's command he crossed. I am one who wilfully puts out his eyes, Then dark to him the shining day doth rise!"