qasída

   The qasída is a classical genre of Arabic verse that seems to have originated in the oral poetry of pre-Islamic Bedouin society in the early sixth century. The written genre became a standard poetic form throughout the Muslim world, and was used by Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu poets. Qasídas ran from about 30 to 120 lines or so—sometimes longer in Turkish, though in other traditions the qasída rarely exceeded 100 lines. Qasídas dealt with a variety of themes, from elegy to panegyric to satire. Later qasídas almost always were formal praise poems. In form, qasídas commonly opened with a line containing a pair of rhyming half lines, and continued with that rhyme repeated at the end of every line.

   The typical qasída in its early form consisted of two main sections. The first section was quite formulaic: The poem begins with reference to a place— usually an abandoned campsite in the desert—that recalls the speaker’s former love. In a mood of nostalgia and melancholy, the poet recalls details of the love affair, generally including a detailed catalogue of the lady’s attributes. Finally the speaker of the poem resolves to leave off his dismal brooding, mount his camel, and ride away. At this point the poet typically includes another detailed catalogue—this time listing the attributes of the camel. It has been suggested that these parallel descriptions imply a contrast, the lady representing a life of ease, the camel one of action and striving (Hamori 1974). The second part of the qasída was far more variable. It might contain a list of the poet’s merits or accomplishments, or those of his tribe. It might celebrate the great deeds or qualities of the poet’s patron, or the one he hoped would become his patron. It might, in contrast, satirize an enemy of the poet’s.

   Later qasídas were written almost exclusively as praise poems, so the second part of the poem chiefly extolled the virtues of one’s patron. In those poems the structure of the poem consisted of, first, the description of the amorous affair (a section called nasib); second, a description of the poet’s journey across the desert until he reaches the safe haven of the patron’s headquarters; and third, a section of fairly conventional praise for the patron. The importance of the qasída, however, certainly goes beyond the mere praising of patrons. Even from the beginning of the Islamic period, the qasída had what Hamori calls a “ritualistic” quality, recalling and somewhat idealizing the mythic time of origins in the desert. Doubtless this explains why, even when the poem’s intent was largely panegyric, the amorous nasib and the journey by camel remain significant parts of the genre. But the genre continued to develop—by the 12th and 13th centuries, religious themes were introduced. The genre has persisted in Islamic societies to the present day, with modern themes, but such modern poems are part of a literary tradition dating back 1,500 years to the pre-Muslim deserts. An important writer of quasídas was IBN AL-‘ARABI.

   Bibliography

   ■ Hamori, Andras. On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974.

   ■ Sperl, Stefan, and Christopher Shackle, eds. Qasída Poetry in Islamic Africa and Asia. 2 vols. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1996.