Arabic poetry has been central to Arabic culture for millennia. Early Arabic poetry before Islam was not narrowly tribal, but engaged with ancient Egyptian, Persian, and Greek ideas. Christianity, which was prevalent in Arabia before Islam, figured importantly in early Arabic poetry. In the enormous, cosmopolitan civilization of the Abbasid caliphate, Arabic poetic fluency played a crucial role in determining a person’s social status.
Classical Arabic literature loved women with large buttocks. At least one medieval European women sought that ideal of beauty at her husband’s expense. … Read the post classical Arabic buttocks in medieval European context
Violence against men will end with new poetry that out-sings women’s tahrid, suppresses incitement to violence, and chases away the hyenas. … Read the post tahrid: women inciting men to kill other men
Humans have long been concerned about lying. Poetic deception, or whether poets are liars, depends on how and when poets recite their poems. … Read the post poetic deception: the truth about fictional lying
Through its theatrically enacted bi-narrative, al-Farazdaq’s story of the girls overturns biographical reading of Imruʼ al-Qays’s Muʻallaqah. … Read the post al-Farazdaq realized Imruʼ al-Qays' poetic revelation
In courtly social circumstances, caliphs of mighty ancient Islamic empires did not sexually dominate even their foreign slave-girls. … Read the post all-powerful caliphs subjected to their slave-girls