12/18/2020 0:00:00
When I was a high school student…I remember that I was in an Arabic language class about the seven hangings. I was finding it very difficult to be convinced of the explanation of why they were called the hangings, because they were attached to the wall of the Kaaba.
Because the world and space of those poems did not seem to me to have a relationship with the environment of Mecca, neither from near nor from afar. I felt that there were errors in my imagination in which Mecca was depicted while I was reading the poems of the Mu’allaqat, because I did not find any connection between the space of poetry and the space of the story. Mecca .
After a long time, the question arose in my mind again, while I was thinking about historical issues… Its name may have been given for a reason that has nothing to do with the story of its hanging on the wall of the Kaaba. Or perhaps they were called mu’allaqat because they are hung on the wall of the Kaaba to give them a state of holiness. Or it was from another, distant space, and that does not prevent it from being commented on.
Days passed…until one day I asked myself:
Why aren’t the poems of the Seven Mu’allaqat, they were actually hung on the wall of the Kaaba, but not this Kaaba, but another Kaaba? Why aren’t the geography and space of the poems of the Mu’allaqat describing the geography of another Kaaba?
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The discussion of the poetry of the Mu’allaqat does not come without mentioning Taha Hussein’s book on pre-Islamic poetry, the book that caused a great uproar and whose author was subjected to atonement for saying that pre-Islamic poetry was written in a period after Islam.
What is the story of Taha Hussein’s book (On Pre-Islamic Poetry)?
After Taha Hussein’s return from France, specifically in 1926, he published the book “On Pre-Islamic Poetry,” and the summary of his book is that pre-Islamic poetry is distorted, and that it was written after Islam and attributed to pre-Islamic poets.
Taha Hussein expected that his book would cause an uproar, and he mentioned this in the introduction to his book. Indeed, the book caused a great uproar and controversy, and many opinions came out opposing it, and many people responded to it, including: Mustafa Sadiq Al-Rafi’i, Al-Khader Hussein, Muhammad Lutfi Jumaa, and Other thinkers and writers.
Not only that, but a number of Al-Azhar scholars sued Taha Hussein in court, but the court acquitted him because it was not proven that his opinion was intended to intentionally insult religion or the Qur’an….. So he changed the name of his book to “On Pre-Islamic Literature” and deleted from it some of the things that were taken from it. on him.
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I believe… that Taha Hussein, after his return from France and being influenced by the curricula taught in French universities, including, according to his words, the Cartesian method of skepticism, he tried to apply that method in his field of specialization, and made him doubt that pre-Islamic poetry was poetry that expressed pre-Islamic life. And that it was written before the Qur’an, and according to this approach, he removed this doubt in his book that he published in 1926.
In my personal opinion, it is very important to enrich the Arabic content on the Internet with a summary of Taha Hussein’s book so that it becomes accessible to many, in order to re-present the issue that Taha Hussein brought up and raise it again in the intellectual community.
Therefore, we will try to provide a summary of Taha Hussein’s book in several articles, and extract the most important parts of the book.
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● Taha Hussein knew very well the uproar his book would cause, as he said in the introduction to his book:
This is a type of research into a new history of Arabic poetry that people have not been familiar with before, and I am almost certain that a group of them will read it indignant about it, and that another group will criticize it, but due to the discontent of those people and the visitors of these people, I want to broadcast this research, or in more correct terms, I want to restrict it, so I broadcast it. Before today when I spoke about it to my students at the university. It is no secret what you speak to more than two hundred people, and I was convinced by the results of this research with a conviction similar to what I know I felt in those different positions that I took in the history of Arabic literature, and it is this strong conviction that leads me to restrict this research and publish it in these chapters without being filled with the discontent of the dissatisfied. I don’t care about the fake Bazurar.
I am confident that this research, even if it angers some people and is difficult for others, will satisfy this small group of enlightened people who are in fact the tool of the future, the foundation of the modern renaissance, and the wealth of new literature.
● Taha Hussein says:
Pre-Islamic poetry is fabricated poetry after Islam, and it is the poetry of Muslims that represents their desires and has nothing to do with pre-Islamic times. The so-called poems of Imru’ al-Qays, Tarfa bin al-Abd, Antara and others are poetry fabricated by narrators, storytellers, and grammarians, or inventions of commentators and hadith scholars. Speakers.
● Taha Hussein himself says in a writing:
You will ask me how my research led to this dangerous theory? In order to give you a convincing answer, I must talk to you about a different group of issues, and you will see that these different types of issues all lead to one result, which is this theory.
I must tell you about the internal political life of the Arab nation after the emergence of Islam and the establishment of the Fatah movement, and the connection between life and poetry. I must tell you about the condition of those people who prevailed after the conquest in Persia, Iraq, the Levant, the Peninsula, and Misr, and the connection between this condition and the language and literature of the Arabs. I must tell you about the emergence of religious and linguistic sciences and the connection between them and language and literature. Then I must tell you about the Al-Yahoud in Arab countries before Islam, and the connection between these Al-Yahoud and Arabic literature. After this, I must tell you about Christianity and the spread it had in Arab countries before Islam, and the impact it had on the mental, intellectual and literary lives of the Arabs, and the connection between all of this and Arabic literature and Arabic poetry. Then I must tell you about external political influences that worked in the lives of Arabs before Islam and had a strong influence on pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and on Arabic poetry that was plagiarized and added to the ignorant.
These topics that I referred to will all lead to the theory that I presented: which is that the absolute abundance of what we call pre-Islamic poetry is not pre-Islamic poetry in any way. However, I will not stop at these topics, because I did not stop at them between myself and myself, but rather I went beyond them, and I want to go beyond them with you to another type of research, which I think is stronger in evidence and greater argument than the previous topics, and that is artistic and linguistic research. This research (technically and linguistically) will conclude that this poetry, which is attributed to Imru’ al-Qays, or to al-A’sha, or to other ignorant poets, cannot, from a linguistic and artistic standpoint, be by these poets. And it must not have been said before the Qur’an appeared… Yes!
This research will lead us to a strange result. This is that this poetry should not be cited as an interpretation of the Qur’an, but rather the Qur’an should be cited as a basis for the interpretation and interpretation of this poetry.
I want to say that these poems do not prove anything or indicate anything, and they should not be taken as a means to what they have been led to in the science of the Qur’an. She merely invented and invented an invention so that scholars could cite her for what they wanted to cite.
● Taha Hussein says:
I admit from now on that this research is extremely difficult, and I strongly doubt that we may reach a satisfactory result, yet we will try it.
● Taha Hussein says:
In research, I will follow the path of modern scholars and philosophers. I want to create in literature this philosophical approach that Descartes introduced to search for the truths of things. Everyone knows that the basic rule in this approach is for the researcher to divest himself of everything he knew before, and to receive His search was empty-headed. If the ancients had differentiated between their minds and hearts and dealt with knowledge in the same way as the moderns deal with it, not being influenced by nationalism, fanaticism, religion, or any whims related to all of this, they would have left us with a literature other than the literature we find at our disposal.
● Taha Hussein says:
I do not deny pre-Islamic life, but I deny that this poetry, which they call pre-Islamic poetry, represents it. Because if I want to study pre-Islamic life, I do not take it the way of Imru’ al-Qais, Al-A’sha, or others, because I do not trust what is attributed to them. Rather, I take another path to it, which is to study it from a text whose authenticity is beyond doubt. I study it from the Qur’an, for the Qur’an is the truest mirror of the pre-Islamic era. . Study it from the Qur’an, from the poetry of these poets who were contemporary with the Prophet and argued with him, and in the poetry of the poets who came after him. Study it in Umayyad poetry. The life of the pre-Islamic Arabs is more apparent in the poetry of Al-Farazdaq and Al-Akhtal than in the poetry attributed to Imru’ al-Qais and others.
● Taha Hussein says:
The Qur’an is the truest mirror of pre-Islamic life. This issue seems somewhat strange, but it is intuitive when you think about it a little.
It is not easy to understand that people were impressed by the Qur’an when its verses were recited to them, unless there is a connection between them and the Qur’an, which is the connection that exists between a wonderful artistic work and those who admire it when they hear it or look at it. It is not easy to understand that the Arabs resisted the Qur’an, opposed it, and argued with the Prophet about it, unless they understood it and understood its secrets. It is not easy, and it is not possible to believe that the Qur’an was new to the Arabs. If it were, they would not have understood it. Neither were aware of it, nor did some of them believe in it, nor did some of them support it.
● The Qur’an is a truer representation of the religious life of ancient Arabs than what is called pre-Islamic poetry
● Pre-Islamic poetry and language
Taha Hussein says:
This is the clearest proof of the validity of our theory, and that pre-Islamic poetry does not represent the religious and mental life of pre-Islamic Arabs, because it is far removed from the Arabic language of the era in which it is claimed to have been spoken.
Pre-Islamic poetry does not represent the pre-Islamic language, because the opinion agreed upon by the narrators is that the Arabs are divided into two groups: Qahtaniyah, their first homes in Yemen, and Adnaniyah, their first homes in Hijaz.
They agree that the Qahtanis are Arabs, since Allah created them. They were innately Arabic, so they are Arabs, and that the Adnanis acquired Arabic as they acquired it, and they spoke other languages, Hebrew and Chaldean. Then they learned the foreign language of the Arabs, so their first language was erased from their chests and the second, borrowed language was established in it. They agree that this Mozarabic Adnaniyya traces its lineage back to Ismail bin Ibrahim, and they narrate a hadith that they take as a basis for all of this theory, the conclusion of which is that the first person to speak Arabic was Ismail.
The narrators agree on all of this, but they also agree on something else that modern research has proven, which is that there is a strong disagreement between the language of Himyar (Arabic Arabs) and the language of Adnan (Arabic Arabs), and it was narrated on the authority of Abu Omar bin Al-Ala that he used to say The tongue of Himyar is not like our tongue, and their language is not like our language.
The truth is that modern research has proven a fundamental difference between the language that was spoken by people in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, and the language that was spoken by people in northern Yemen. We now have inscriptions and texts that enable us to prove this disagreement in pronunciation and in the rules of grammar and morphology. Therefore, this issue must be separated.
If the sons of Ismail had learned Arabic from those Arabs whom we call the Arabs, then how after it became clear what language the Arabs and the Arabs spoke were Arabs, so that Abu Omar bin Al-Ala was able to say that they were two distinct languages, and the scholars at the present time were able to prove this distinction with the evidence that Do not accept doubts or arguments.
The matter does not stop at this point, as it is very clear to those who are familiar with historical research in general and with the study of myths and stories in particular, that this theory (Ismail took Arabic from Jurhum) is grandiose and artificial in recent times and was prompted by a religious, economic, or political need. The Torah has the right to tell us about Ibrahim and Ismail, and the Qur’an has the right to talk to us about them, but this is not enough to confirm their historical existence. In addition to proving the story that told us the story of the migration of Ismail bin Ibrahim to Mecca and the emergence of the Mozarab Arabs.
We know that wars broke out between Arabized Al-Yahoud and Arabs and ended with some peace, so it is not far-fetched that this peace that was established was the origin of the story, which makes Arabs and Al-Yahoud cousins.
But what is beyond doubt is that the emergence of Islam and the violent rivalry between it and paganism among the Arabs required establishing the link between the new religion and the two ancient religions, the Al-Yahoud and Al-Nasarah.
As for the religious connection, it is firm and clear. The Qur’an, the Torah, and the Enjil share a common subject, form, and purpose. They all aim for monotheism and rely on a single foundation. However, this religious connection is moral and mental and would be better served by another, tangible, material connection.
What prevents this story from being exploited, the story of the physical kinship between the Adnan Arabs and the Al-Yahoud?
The Quraysh were ready to accept this myth in the seventh century AD, as they were enjoying a political and economic boom that guaranteed them sovereignty over Mecca and its environs.
So the matter of this story is very clear, as it is recent and appeared before Islam, and Islam exploited it for a religious reason. Mecca accepted it for a religious and political reason, so literary and linguistic history cannot ignore it when it wants to know the origin of the classical Arabic language.
So, we can say that the link between the classical Arabic language, which was spoken by the Adnaniyah, and the language that was spoken by the Arab Qahtaniyah Arabs in Yemen, is like the link between the Arabic language and any other Semitic language.
The story of the Arabs, the Arabs, the Arabs, and Ismail learning Arabic from Jurhum, are all just legends.
The result of all this research brings us back to the original topic, which is that this poetry, which they call pre-Islamic, does not represent the pre-Islamic language and it cannot be true, because we find among these poets who are affiliated with the Arabs of Yemen to this Arab Qahtaniyah who spoke a language other than the language of the Qur’an. . About which Abu Amr bin Al-Alaa said: Its language is different from the language of the Arabs. Which modern research has proven to be a different language from Arabic.
● Taha Hussein says:
The Qur’an is the only ancient Arabic text whose authenticity a historian can be confident of and consider as a diagnostic of the era that followed it. As for the poetry of these poets, the speeches of these preachers, and the sung of these prostrate people, there is no way to trust it or be reassured by it.
● Taha Hussein spoke in a chapter of his book about the fact that plagiarism is not limited to Arabs, and in a chapter about the role of politics in plagiarizing poetry, and reviewed the conflict between Mecca and Medina, the struggle of Quraysh and the Ansar, and the relationship of the conflict to the plagiarism of pre-Islamic poetry, and in a chapter about The role of religion in plagiarizing poetry.
● Then Taha Hussein spoke in a chapter about Imru’ al-Qais and discussed in it his history, origin, lineage, and the lack of agreement about his name, and concluded that he is a character like Homer and not real.
He said that the origin of the poet is Yemeni and his poetry is Quraysh, even though the language of Yemen is different from the language of Quraysh, so how did he compose his poetry, and you do not find any information in his poems that indicates that he is Yemeni.
Taha Hussein was surprised that Imru’ al-Qais’s poems did not talk about his maternal aunt, who had a great story. Taha Hussein was surprised by the story of his going to Constantinople and the absence of any evidence of that trip in his poetry, so he did not write about the Romans or about that visit.
He talked about his poetry and extracted two poems from it, and explained how weak the rest of his poems were, how weak they were, how stupid and affective they were, and that the feature of his poetry is that it is not coordinated and not composed, and that the subject alone does not exist and that the poetic character does not exist either. Unlike the poetry that came after Islam, in which you find unity present and the poetic character clear in it, the reason is because the abundance of this poetry is plagiarized and artificial, and this poetry is only suitable as a model for the absurdity of storytellers and narrators.
● In a chapter, he talked about Amr bin Kulthum and Al-Harith bin Halza, and in the chapter on Tarfa bin Al-Abd, he discussed some information about these poets, reviewed some poetry texts, compared them with other texts, analyzed them, and concluded that they were plagiarized texts, and some of them touched upon the spirit of Islam. . etc
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We have almost finished providing a summary of Taha Hussein’s book, and now we come to the important question:
Was Taha Hussein correct in his conclusion?
I believe that the answer to this question requires comprehensive and thorough research due to its great importance, because this issue raised by Taha Hussein is still strongly discussed in my opinion even today, and many do not realize its dimensions.
But in my personal opinion……… I think that Taha Hussein was very, very correct. Indeed, he was the first person to expound the Holy Qur’an from those poems that were used to interpret the Qur’an.
I do not know what made them accuse him of insulting the Qur’an and religion. On the contrary, he upheld the Qur’an while they insulted the Holy Qur’an.
The reason may be the nature of the time, as society at that time was not accustomed to such topics. Perhaps if Taha Hussein had lived in our current era and published a book today, he would not have caused such a stir…. The nature of the time and the nature of the ideas prevailing in society at that time is the reason, despite Taha Hussein, with his fine and beautiful language, was very polite.
What are the points that Taha Hussein was affected by?
● Pre-Islamic poetry was invented poetry after Islam
He was right in what he said.. Why?
As for me… when I read the poems of the Seven Mu’allaqalaat, I find that the world and space of those poems do not seem to me to have anything to do with the story and environment of Mecca and its time, neither remotely nor remotely.
I feel that there is a mistake in my imagination, which depicts Mecca, its environment, and its time, while I read the poetry of the Mu’allaqat, because I do not find any connection between the space of those poems and the space of the story of Mecca and its time, which was presented to the Muslim.
But Taha Hussein has a stronger opinion…. He says: (If I wanted to study these poems, I would take another path, which is to study them from a text whose authenticity cannot be doubted. Study them from the Qur’an, for the Qur’an is the truest mirror to the pre-Islamic era. Study it from the Qur’an.)
Indeed…the Qur’an is the truest mirror of that era. Isn’t the Qur’an a dividing stage between the pre-Islamic era and Islam?! .
So, it is logical that the Qur’an is the text through which pre-Islamic life can be understood, and because the Holy Qur’an is a sacred text and great care is taken to preserve the sacred text, its authenticity is never doubted. In contrast to those poems, which are not sacred texts and there is no extreme and sacred care in preserving them… and as for the claim that they were hung on the wall of the Kaaba, it is only for the sake of giving them sanctity in the Muslim psyche… that makes them parallel to the text of the Qur’an. Rather, it goes beyond the Qur’an in its pronunciation, grammar, and rules.
Therefore… whoever reads the vocabulary of the Qur’an, which was a dividing language between the pre-Islamic era and the Islamic era, and compares it with the vocabulary of those poems, will find that the vocabulary of the Qur’an is completely different from that language… in fact, the general discourse The Qur’an does not belong at all to the world found in the poems of the Seven Mu’allaqat.
● The Qur’an is a truer representation of the religious life of ancient Arabs than what is called pre-Islamic poetry.
Very logical and scientific talk, because really….. when you read the poetry and commentary, you do not find in it any features of religious, social, or intellectual life, an imaginary space from a very distant world that has no religion or spiritual conception, while when you read the Qur’an, you find it a different world. Radically, it talks about a world in which religion is deep, continuous, sequential, and uninterrupted.
Therefore, the time gap between the world of pre-Islamic poetry and the world of the Qur’an was what made the Muslim believe that Islam suddenly descended from space without a connected context.
This contradicts logic and reason, because there is no religion that comes out of nowhere, and there is no religion that appears suddenly without the presence of an ancient religious context, and many find it difficult to comprehend this thing, because of this time gap that was presented to the Muslim between pre-Islamic times and Islam through these poems. And the stories of pre-Islamic times, which made some view religion as a sudden incident that suddenly happened for people to embrace, while religion is an upper consciousness with an ancient, continuous, continuous and inseparable context, and this thing is also not understood by many non-religious people, liberals, and researchers in comparative religions who They constantly repeat the phrase that one religion was stolen from another religion, and the issue was copyright and patent.
Or that religion is an invented idea.
● The Qur’an is the only ancient Arabic text that the historian can be assured of its authenticity and consider it diagnostic of the era in which it was recited.
I think this is the confirmed truth.
The Qur’an is the only Arabic text whose authenticity can be reassured and trusted to understand pre-Islamic times, and it is the only text through which we can know the environment and time from which the Qur’an emerged… These poems should not be a starting point for understanding the time of the Qur’an.. In fact, I may go further than Taha Hussein’s idea and say that the Prophet’s biography should not be a reference for understanding the time of the Qur’an.
● Pre-Islamic poetry should not be cited to interpret the Qur’an, but rather the Qur’an should be cited to interpret and interpret this poetry. It should not be taken as a means to what it was taken for in the knowledge of the Qur’an. She merely invented and invented an invention so that scholars could cite her for what they wanted to cite.
Very true…. Taha Hussein has touched the wound, because considering these poems to be from a time before the Qur’an, and giving them sanctity through the story of their hanging on the wall of the Kaaba, only existed in order to make those poems an argument for the Qur’an, and everyone knows how commentators rely on those poems. In interpreting the Qur’an and knowing the Qur’an’s words and grammar rules. And etc.
These poems were deliberately used in order to make them a reference for the Qur’an… while the opposite is true… The Qur’an is an argument for those poems… This is the logic.
● [The Qur’an is the truest mirror of pre-Islamic life, because it is not easy to understand that people were impressed by the Qur’an when its verses were recited to them, unless there is a connection between them and the Qur’an, which is the connection that exists between a wonderful artistic work and those who admire it when they hear or see it. mechanism . It is not easy to understand that the Arabs resisted the Qur’an, opposed it, and argued with the Prophet about it, unless they understood it and understood its secrets. It is not easy, and it is not possible to believe that the Qur’an was new to the Arabs. If it were, they would not have understood it. Neither were aware of it, nor did some of them believe in it, nor did some of them support it.]
Very correct words, and this is a point that many do not want to understand, even though it is self-evident if they think about it a little.
First… As long as the Qur’an is a dividing text between pre-Islamic times and Islam, it is the only text that can be trusted.
Secondly… The sacred religious text cannot come from a vacuum, and there must be an ancient willingness in society to accept such a linguistic system for the sacred texts… And there must be a meta-cognitive authority within the cultural system that is aware of this. The text, understanding it, realizing it, and being aware of its sanctity….. That is, it is not a new, sudden text that appeared to people and they suddenly believed in it without realizing its religious value. That is, it is a new and old text at the same time in the consciousness of society.
This thing requires people to take care of it and preserve it. Extreme care must be taken to transport and preserve it. This is the reason why we consider the Qur’an to be the only reliable source at that time.
● Imru’ al-Qais is a hypothetical character like Homer, not real.
I completely agree with Taha Hussein, even if he compared her to a very distant character, Homer, who is not culturally sensitive to us, because I think that comparing her to local or popular figures would be more understandable.
Why ?
First… When you read about the story of Imru’ al-Qais, you do not find it clear in his poetry. His poetry is somewhat distant from his life. We also notice in his story a marriage between the ancient and the modern in a strange way, as if his life took place in a recent period.
For example……… According to history books, Imru’ al-Qais went to Constantinople and died in Ankara.
I find this world very modern, as it is a nomadic life that knows no cities or urban spaces in the region….and suddenly even Constantinople.
Rather, I find the word Ankara to be a modern word within the story, as if it was written during the Ottoman era…because in the Greek era there was not yet a city called Ankara.
So how did Ankara appear in the story…and why did he die there specifically?! Or the question in another way… Why is everything moving towards Constantinople?
The Companions of the Cave are in Turkey, Nouh’s Ark is in Turkey, Ibrahim is in Turkey, and Imru’ al-Qais is in Turkey. It is as if there was a room in Turkey and there were authors in it, and they were writing books and trying to link the region to the current geography of Turkey, that is, to connect the region intellectually, religiously, and culturally. And literary with that geography… the geography of the Romans… so that it is the center of the region.
If you want to compare the character of Imru al-Qais with another character, I believe that the character of Imru al-Qais is similar to two characters found in popular culture in Yemen, and Yemenis know them well.
Ali Ould Zayed and Al-Hamid bin Mansour.
And for those who do not know these two people… Ali Ould Zayed and Al-Hamid bin Mansour are the two most famous agricultural sages in Yemen, and their rulings are widely circulated in the Yemeni countryside…and many have been written about them. Research and studies, about their reality, their time, their stories, their poetry, their birth, etc.
Ali Ould Zayed’s poetry is circulated in certain regions of Yemen, while the poetry of Al-Hamid bin Mansour is circulated in other regions of Yemen.
But when you read the poetry of Ali Ould Zayed, you will find it to be an exact copy of the poetry of Al-Humaid bin Mansour……. The same phrase, the same language, and the same meaning, but the difference between the poems is that the two countrysides in the areas where Ali Ould Zayed’s poetry is circulated say: … (Ali Ould Zayed says) while the rural people who circulate the poems of Al-Hamid bin Mansour say… (Al-Hamid bin Mansour said).
Example
Ali Ould Zayed says: Al-Qabaili made his country proud, even if it afflicted it
Al-Hamid bin Mansour said: Al-Qabaili glorified his country, even if he swallowed it, he would destroy it
The poems of Ali Ould Zayed and Al-Hamid bin Mansour are poems of wisdom, moral laws, and transactions in daily life, within the family, and about agriculture, farming seasons, and farming methods.
But the strange thing is in their poetry
It does not contain any features about religion, religious life, Mecca, or Hajj…….. You do not find any poetic line for them that mentions the Prophet, mentions religions, mentions Mecca, mentions Hajj, mentions prayer or fasting….. ….and you sometimes find two similar descriptions for two different places…..and yet the rural people in Yemen revere these two characters, and if you say to any rural person in Yemen, especially the elderly…he says Ali Ould Zayed or he said Al-Hamid bin Mansour, so…he considers it a binding law.
The stories of Ali Ould Zayed and Al-Hamid bin Mansour…are an imaginary space that is closely linked to reality, but it strangely ignores religion and does not talk about it…and yet people believe that they are real characters, despite They say the same words and the same poems and face the same stories, and their place or grave is not known, only narrations. Society has even made these two characters real and effective. There are stories that talk about meetings that took place between them, through the story of a marriage between the son of one of them and the daughter of the other.
What’s important is the topic
I find that this phenomenon in Yemen can be studied and compared to many figures in the general history of the region.
My characters Ali Ould Zayed and Al-Hamid bin Mansour in Yemen may have a cultural function in the local environment, by teaching people agricultural skills and instilling values and moral laws among people, but I find that Imru’ Al-Qais’s function was to create space. Great imagination for the area.
Creating a time that separates two eras… creating a time limit, creating a new time for the region, creating a time called the pre-Islamic era, or even creating a new time for the Qur’an. Yes!
Creating a new era for the Qur’an… not only Imru’ al-Qais, but the matter applies to the rest of the pre-Islamic poets, but also to the pre-Islamic era… as evidenced by the fact that the story of these poets was linked to a kind of holiness… through the story of hanging their poems on a wall. The Kaaba……… to grant sanctity to those poetic texts and the stories of those poets and their times.
● [The advantage of pre-Islamic poetry is that it is not coordinated and not combined, that unity does not exist and that the poetic personality does not exist either. Unlike the poetry that came after Islam, in which you find unity present and the poetic character clear in it, the reason is because the abundance of this poetry is plagiarized and artificial, and this poetry is only suitable as a model for the absurdity of storytellers and narrators. ]
I completely agree with Taha Hussein… although I am not a literary critic to compare myself to Taha Hussein and put myself opposite him in order to agree with him, but as a very ordinary reader who reads these poems, and only a connoisseur.
Because the truth is… when I read those pre-Islamic poems, I actually find that the poetic personality does not exist, the poetic unity is hidden, and you feel that there is no unity in the poem…an intellectual, psychological or intellectual unity…you feel that There is not a single soul in the poem… You do not feel that a single mentality wrote those poems.
Therefore, we find that many people find it very difficult to understand and memorize it as well. You feel as if every two verses were different from the verses after them…. and that it was a group of people who wrote those poems.
Although this does not prevent one line in the poem from being beautiful, it has no relationship to the following verses. Unlike other poems, you find unity present and the poetic personality very apparent… you feel that one person wrote the poem.
● There remains a final point and an important observation, which makes me agree with Taha Hussein regarding the poetry of the Mu’allaqat and pre-Islamic poetry, and that they were fabricated poetry in a period of time after the Qur’an, and this observation is:
How come these poems have no relation to the civil cities in the region… They do not live there, even though they move, move, travel and cover vast distances, but there is no mention of the cities and cities in the region.
For example……..Doesn’t the Prophet’s biography mention Sana’a, and that the grandfather of the Prophet went to Sana’a to visit Saif bin Dhi Yazan, but you do not find any mention of the city of Sana’a in the poems of the Mu’allaqat….it is completely hidden…not only Sana’a, but The rest of the other cities in the region are hidden, absent, and unknown to these poets.
They travel to Constantinople, Ankara, Rome, Persia, and Al-Hira, but they do not travel to Baghdad, Damascus, Aleppo, or any other city connected to us to this day.
Where are the cities and cities of the region?
A completely obliterated world… a world in which there is no furniture in the region… a space completely empty of the region’s furniture… the furniture has disappeared… only the furniture of Rome and Persia occupies this space.
Also, there is no mention, reference, or allusion to the ancient and famous urban landmarks that exist in the region even today.
An imaginary space that is not connected to reality.
There is an observation that is the most important and biggest for me.
You do not find in these poems or in the stories of these poets any mention of Misr, for Misr is clearly and suspiciously hidden at all. These poets travel to Constantinople, to Al-Hira, to Persia, etc., and to every place, but they do not approach Misr or any place in it, and There is not even a hint of it. There is no mention of Misr in the stories or poems. It has completely disappeared… and Misr did not exist in the world… even though Misr is a very ancient presence in the region, and an important center in the region, and with… It is completely absent.
It doesn’t make sense at all……. as if one consciousness drew the whole story, because this observation that I mentioned, I find very clear in most of the heritage that has reached us, a suspicious and unnatural disregard for Misr and its world, while most of the focus of political history For the Romans and Greece, which reached us a position towards Misr…as the first point in the region.
Also… there are the pyramids… these huge edifices. It is completely hidden in Al-Mu’allaqat’s poems and stories. These poets travel everywhere but do not mention any information about the pyramids.
This observation makes me completely convinced that these poets are imaginary characters and their stories and poems were fabricated over a period of time. As for the basic function of these poets…it may be a literary and aesthetic function like what exists among other peoples, as Taha Hussein said. But there is a very high possibility that it was deliberately fabricated to create an imaginary time for the Qur’an and the region.
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These are the points on which we agree with Taha Hussein, and these are the reasons why we agree with them greatly.
But the truth
There are other points that Taha Hussein spoke about in writing, and we do not agree with him about them at all, and the reason is that there is material evidence that completely negates those points that Taha Hussein adopted in his approach………….In fact, he made mistakes, He should not be mistaken about it because he specializes in literature and the Arabic language, and we believe that the reason is that there is a defect in some parts of the curriculum adopted by Taha Hussein……. I am not saying that the entire curriculum is wrong, but rather parts of the curriculum are wrong. Perhaps, if Taha Hussein lived to this day, he would discover for himself the flaws in his approach.
What are these points, and where does the error lie in the approach adopted by Taha Hussein?
He follows