Abundance from the Desert: Classical Arabic Poetry

6 Flyting

115 Flyting The poem’s message should slaughter. —‘Anayz Abu Salim al-‘Urdi, quoted in Clinton Bailey, Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev Our next poet, Jarir, was born ca. 653 in Yamama, the desert region of central-northeastern Arabia. He belonged to Kulayb ibn Yarbu‘ of the very large Tamim tribal group. Around 690 he moved to Basra, where he made a name for himself. His specialty was satire; over the next several decades he abused scores of fellow poets. Likewise, they satirized him. After several decades of activity in Basra, and in the cities of Syria and Palestine during periodical visits, he retired to his native Yamama. He died there ca. 730. Though satire was not discussed in the opening chapters of this study, it indeed was a major mode of early Arabic poetry. Yet it was becoming even more prominent in the Umayyad period and taking on a new aspect. Pre-Islamic satire, it may be said, was predominantly tribal. Even when one smeared an individual, one could expect that his or her kin would feel insulted, and harsh lines might come back from any poet in the concerned tribe. With the advent of Islam, there was initially an effort to suppress satire due to the Qur’anic emphasis on brotherhood (49:10, and many places elsewhere). The second caliph, ‘Umar, for example, warned against vilifying (which meant to him essentially, “That you compare people and say: ‘So-and-so is better than so-and-so, or: the clan of so-and-so is better than so-and-so’”),1 and governor of Basra Ibn ‘Abbas (d. 689) later reportedly declared: “Hija’ [satire] is not proper, for you cannot avoid making hija’ on other persons from his clan, so that you would wrong those who did not wrong you and abuse those who did not abuse you. . . . You know the virtue that lies in forgiving.”2 Nevertheless , satire gained in popularity, especially in the form of scornful exchanges 116 Abundance from the Desert between rival poets. No fewer than ten pairs of poets during the Umayyad period were largely absorbed in the enterprise of humiliating one another. It was, as Salma K. Jayyusi has pointed out, an Age of Satire.3 And notably, in contrast with what unkind words were earlier launched from one side to the other and vice versa, the satire was more personal, aimed particularly at an individual. It perhaps may be useful here to clarify the nature of satire in classical Arabic poetry. As a rule, it is invective. The formal exchange of invective that became so popular, furthermore, is best described as flyting. This term originally referred to a form in the Scottish poetic tradition (as in the fifteenth-century “The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie”), but close analogues to the Scottish form existed previously—besides in classical Arabic poetry—in Greek and Roman and also in medieval French traditions. Generally speaking, the form is related to the poetic contests that are found in many literatures. Invective, the substance of these classical Arabic duels, is of course ancient, as old as verse itself. We might recall that satire, though manifold in expression, has for much of history been associated specifically with this kind of personal poetic abuse. So it was, one notes, in sixteenth-century England and France. Compare, for instance, Joseph Hall: The Satyre should be like the Porcupine, That shoots sharpe quils out in each angry line, And wounds the blushing cheeke, and fiery eye, Of him that heares, and readeth guiltily. It may be of further interest to note, in this regard, that satire qua invective was condemned widely by western Europeans in the eighteenth century on moral grounds and had lost much of its popularity among them by the mid-nineteenth century. Similarly, we may add, invective has declined in popularity in the Arab world during the modern period, with the major exception of the bold poetry by Muzaffar al-Nawwab (about contemporary Arab rulers). In this chapter we shall read a poem (No. 50) from the most famous flyting in Arabic literature, between Jarir and al-Farazdaq.4 Before we get to the poem, however, let us first acquaint ourselves with Jarir’s opponent and with the provenance of their dispute. Al-Farazdaq was born in Yamama a few years before Jarir. He belonged to Mujashi‘ ibn Darim, also of the Tamim group. His father, Ghalib, was a man of [3.129.13.201] Project MUSE...