Pre-Islamic Poetry Vs Quran
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NOTE :This is not complete yet, please post any material that you think might be useful.
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History : Pre-Islamic poetry :
Many Muslims claim that Quran is a unique book and no one can bring a surah like it.(I’ll do it as soon as they make a soft drink better than Coke.)
You can also say,Quran doesn’t have any pictures in it,so it’s not the best and most complete book.
*Poetry held an important position in pre-Islamic society with the poet or sha’ir filling the role of historian, soothsayer and propagandist. Words in praise of the tribe or qit’ah and lampoons denigrating other tribes hija’ seem to have been some of the most popular forms of the early poetry. The sha’ir(poetry) represented an individual tribe’s prestige .
*The very best of these early poems were collected in the 8th century as the Mu’allaqat meaning “the hung poems” and the Mufaddaliyat meaning al-Mufaddal’s examination or anthology. The former is named “the hung poems” being hung on the Kaaba.(Currently verses from quran are on Kaaba)
*Alongside the sha’ir, and often as his poetic apprentice, is the rawi or reciter. The job of the rawi was to learn the poems by heart and to recite them with explanations and probably often with embellishments. This tradition would allow the transmission of these poetic works and the practice would be adopted later by the hafiz for their memorisation of the Qur’an.
*There are several characteristics that distinguish the pre-Islamic poetry from the poetry of later times. One of these characteristics is that in pre-Islamic poetry more attention was given to the eloquence and the wording of the verse (البيت) than to the poem as whole. This resulted in poems characterized by strong vocabulary and short ideas but with loosely connected verses.
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Pre-Islamic Poets ;
Zuhayr ibn Abî Sûlmâ
Pagan poet.In the Arabic poetry of the pre-Islamic period, there are verses which might have been composed by a Muslim, such as these by Zuhair
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Do not hide what is in your souls from Allah,for however carefully it may be hidden and concealed,
Allah will know it!
Either it will be adjourned, put into a book,
and stored for a day of reckoning, or it will come up soon and be requited.
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Zuhayr says at the end of his poem in one of his sententiae : 49.(54.) The one who is afraid of the cords of the Fate of death will nevertheless meet it,even though he climbs to the cords of heaven with a ladder.Spanish Hebrew Poetry and the Arabic Literary Tradition by Arie Schipper
Muhammed and Zuhayr:
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One day Prophet Muhammad and Abu Bakr were approaching a tribe, and among the people of this tribe was a poet. Poets at that time were people of culture and arts. Abu Bakr pointed at a man and told Prophet Muhammad that that was Zohayr the poet. When it was time for shaking hands with men of the tribe, each man was introduced to Prophet Muhammad and when this man was introduced by name, Prophet Muhammad commented “Oh, the poet!” This man commented afterwards that he had never been pleased by something as he was pleased when Prophet Muhammad recognised him.
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Thus Al-Bukhari, when commenting on this Ayah, reported a narration from Anas bin Malik that the Messenger of Allah used to pray:«أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْبُخْلِ وَالْكَسَلِ وَالْهَرَمِ، وَأَرْذَلِ الْعُمُرِ وَعَذَابِ الْقَبْرِ، وَفِتْنَةِ الدَّجَّالِ وَفِتْنَةِ الْمَحْيَا وَالْمَمَات»
(I seek refuge with You from miserliness, laziness, old age, senility, the punishment of the grave, the Fitnah of the Dajjal and the trials of life and death.) Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma said, in his famous Mu`allaqah: “I became exhausted from the responsibilities of life. Whoever lives for eighty years, no wonder he is tired. I saw death hitting people like a crazed camel, and whoever it hit dies, but whoever is not hit lives until he grows old.”
*Zohayr’s biography : Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature By Julie Scott Meisami, Paul Starkey
Labīd
Labid is the only one of these poets who embraced Islam His Mo`allaga, however, like almost all his other poetical works belongs to the pagan period.
Pre-Islamic poems of his ;
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Yea, everything is vain, except only Allah alone,
and every pleasant thing must one day vanish away!Yea, everything is vain, except only Allah alone,
and every pleasant thing must one day vanish away!
The Mu‘allaqat;Sacred Text Archive
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Gone are those in whose jurisdiction it was possible to live
I have remained among posterity like the skin of persons affected by a disease
Sweeter than Hope by Franz Rosenthal
Muhammed and Labid
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Book 028, Number 5608:Abu Huraira reported: I heard Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The truest word which the poet stated is the word of Labid:” Behold! apart from Allah everything is vain.”
Umayya b. Abu Salt
Arab poet,contemporary of muhammed,he is said to have refused to accept muhammed as prophet of god,yet he invited people to monotheism in his poems.Concepts of recognition of one personal god,last judgment day,hell and paradise and appeal for amoral life can be found in Umayyas poems.
Islamic Desk Reference by E.J. van Donzel
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Controversy still rages over the religious poems attributed to Umayya ibn
abi’s-Salt, which bear a remarkable resemblance to passages in the Koran
Encyclopedia Britannica
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One who flees from his death,will approach in
one moment of inattention he will be called to itHe who does not die in prime of life will die in old age
Death has a cup and a man will taste of it
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Praise be to god at our entering upon the evening,and at our entering upon the morning!
May my lord make us pas the morning and make us pass the evening ,in weal.Arabic Morphology and Phonology by Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Masud,Joyce Akesson
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“Glory to Him whom creatures are unable to know in the way he deserves to be knownWho is on his throne,one and one alone,sovereign and possessor over the throne of heaven of heaven
unto who’s majesty faces are humble and prostate”
Allah’s Names and Attributes By Imam Al-Bayhaqi
Umayya’s poem about Abraham
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To Abraham the full filer of the vow
with consideration and bearing generosityHis first born would not resist him
When he saw him among a troop of enemies“Oh my lad,I have pledged you a sacrifice to god
so be patient,for I will be your redemption”“Tighten the bond so I will no resist the knife
Like the manacled captive turning away”
Muhammed and Umayya
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Book 028, Number 5602:‘Amr b. Sharid reported his father as saying: One day when I rode ehind Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him), he said (to me): Do you remember any Poetry of Umayya b. Abu Salt. I said: Yes. He said: Then go on. I recited a couplet, and he said: Go on. Then I again recited a couplet and he said: Go on. I recited one hundred couplets (of his poetry). This hadith has been reported on the authority of Sharid through another chain of transmitters but with a slight variation of wording.
Sahih Muslim book 28
Similar Verses to Quran
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Praise Allah(god),the one who is deserving of our praise
Our lord who is great in the heavensBy a supreme work which preceded mankind
He established a throne above the heavensA throne which no human eye can reach
beneath it angels will be seen prostrating themselves
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notes :
Search Text : POET.
Chapter 1. The Noble Features.
Hadith 010 (010). (Shamaa-il Tirmidhi)
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Chapter 36. The Saying Of Rasulullah.
Hadith 001 (231). (Shamaa-il Tirmidhi)Someone enquired from Aisha radiyallahu anha: Did Rasoolullah sallallahu alaihe wasallam recite POETry? She replied, He sometimes as an example recited the POETry of Abdullah ibn Rawahah (and sometimes of other POETs). He sometimes recited this couplet of Tarfah: ‘Sometimes that person brings news to you whom you have not compensated.
(That means if one wants to know anything about a place, one will have to pay a person for obtaining information. A person has to be given money etc., for the journey in order to obtain information. At times it may so happen that the news is received without having to spend anything. Someone comes and gives full news. Some of the ulama have written that this example given by Sayyidina Rasoolullah sallallahu alaihe wasallam, that without any remuneration, he has given (humanity) the news of Jannah, Jahannum, Qiyaamah, particulars and information regarding the Ambiyaa alaihis salaam, the signs of the future etc. Yet the kuffar (non-believers) do not appreciate this. In this hadith two POETs are mentioned, Sayyidina Abdullah ibn Rawahah radiyallahu anhu a famous Sahaabi who accepted Islam before the Hijrah of Sayyidina Rasoolullah sallallahu alaihe wasallam in the Battle of Mu’ata. The second POET is Tarfah, a famous POET of Arabia. In the famous book of Arabic literature ‘Sab’ah Mu’allaqah’, the second Mu’allaqah has been written by him. He lived before the advent of Islam.)
