Pre-Islamic Poetry as Seen by a Historian

Abstract

The problem of authenticity of the big body of verses presented in the extant sources as preIslamic Arabic poetry has been object of studies for over 150 years, mainly among experts in literature. This article presents a historian’s perception of that problem. The main observations and conclusions made herein are as follows. The diversity of topics which the pre-Islamic poetry addressed excludes the possibility to reduce the poets’ work to a use of ready formulas. On the contrary, it seems that there was a trend to keep originality of each author’s poetry. The poetry were mainly preserved by oral tradition, but there is evidence that a number of verses were written down in pre-Islamic times. That was likely for urban centres, in particular, for al-Hira, where verses were put in written form at rulers’ orders. The question whether verses were written down in Mecca remains open and not resolved in favour of denial of such possibility. The extant tests of verses contain a number of obvious fakes. A study of those fakes (in comparison with Arabic transmissions of pre-Islamic Persian texts) suggests that the authors of fakes fabricated what they held for acceptable and understandable to their audience. However, not every fake was aimed at distorting reality. Where falsified verses are in line with historical context, they may be considered as evidence reflecting mediaeval authors’ knowledge of the events in question.

Keywords:

Arabs, pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, pre-Islamic Arabia, Lakhmids, Hira