POETS. Arabic shāʿir (شاعر), pl. shuʿarāʾ. Poetry, shiʿr (شعر). Muḥammad repudiated the idea of being a poet. See Qurʾān.
[Sūrah xxxvi. 69]: “We have not taught him poetry, nor was it proper for him; it is but a reminder and a plain Qurʾān.”
[Sūrah lxix. 40, 41]: “Verily it is the speech of a noble apostle; and it is not the speech of a poet.”
The Qurʾān being in manifest rhythm, and in some places actual poetry, the declaration of the Prophet, that he was not a poet has much perplexed the commentators. But the Imām Fak͟hru ʾd Dīn ar-Rāzī, has hit upon the following clever explanation of the difficulty. He says, that in order to be a poet it is absolutely necessary that the poems should not be impromptu verses, but deliberately framed, and that, therefore, although the Qurʾān contains poetry (for example, in [Sūrah xciv]., which begins thus:—
الم نشرح لك صدرك
و وضعنا عنك وزرك
Alam nashraḥ laka ṣadraka
Wa waẓaʿnā ʿanka wizraka.
“Have we not opened thy breast for thee?
And taken off from thee thy burden?”)