The Breeze of Dusk with the Scent of Musk

Chapter 22: Arabic Poetry

In the Rainbow City in the Silk Province in the Star Kingdom, Mohammad Azzumurrud, the Arab and Muslim Koran memorizer, is still sharing his knowledge with his twenty Chinese friends (Yueliang Jian, Taiyang Jian, Junjie Song, Liling Heng, Mei Shun, Ji Biming, An Bo, Chang Dequan, Cong Fai, Jiang Qi, Wen Yu, Zhong Ming, Guotin Chuanli, Baozhai Aiguo, Chyou Bolin, Daiyu Chaoxiang, Fen Huizhong, Ju Jianyu, Nuo Park and Shu Qianfan) in regular knowledge sharing sessions held at the Merlin School. Since Arabs are the supreme masters of eloquent speech (prose and poetry), Mohammad wanted to translate some Arabic poetry into Chinese to share some of the beauty and grandeur of Arabic literature with his Chinese friends.

The Poetry Rank in the Arabic and Islamic Civilization

Poetry has an exalted and eminent station and rank in the Arabic and Islamic civilization. There is one Sura of the Holy Koran titled: The Poets (سورة الشعراء). In this Sura, Allah described poets as follows:

"As for the poets, the erring ones follow them, (224) See you not that they speak about every subject (praising people - right or wrong) in their poetry? (225) And that they say what they do not do. (226) Except those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism), and do righteous deeds, and remember Allah much and vindicate themselves after they have been wronged [by replying back in the poetry to the unjust poetry (which the pagan poets utter against the Muslims)]. And those who do wrong will come to know by what overturning they will be overturned. (227)" [THK: S 26: V 224-227].

In the Honorable Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad, Prophet Muhammad said in one Hadeeth: "Some eloquent speech is as effective as magic." He also said: "Some poetry contains wisdom." [BH-1].

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Arab poets and many poets have their poems compiled in divans. Poets and their poetry are immortalized in the Arabic civilization and touch the hearts of millions of Arabs generation after generation. Arabic poetry revolves around seven general categories or topics and these are: description, love, boasting, praise, satire, elegies and apology [W-10].

The traditional Arabic poem has specific characteristics. Each verse of poetry consists of two halves. The second half of each verse strictly adheres to a single rhyme throughout the poem. In other words, the traditional Arabic poem is strictly monorhymed. Also, the traditional Arabic poem must adhere to one of the sixteen predefined meter patterns [W-10]. These sixteen meter patterns are known in Arabic literature as The Seas of Poetry (بحور الشعر). The combination of a single rhyme and a predefined meter pattern make the traditional Arabic poem exquisitely and brilliantly beautiful, bewitching, charming and pleasing to the ear, the mind and the heart.

Poetry allows people to communicate their feelings, emotions, experiences in a concise and eloquent manner. The rhyme and meter of poetry aggrandize and exalt the aesthetic touches of the speech and add numerous levels of syntactical and semantic beauty to poems. Poetry lives long in the hearts, minds and souls of people and they memorize it well due to its charming beauty. Mohammad Albaba said these three Arabic short poems to describe and articulate the essence of poetry [AB-6]:

قول رصين و عند الناس مقياسُ

و منه تِـبْر و بعض الشعر ألماس

بجمر شوق و سلوى فاح إحساس

الشعر ذخر و ذكرى ثم نبراسُ

منه الرخيص بلا وزن و لا ثمن