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In Islam the fascination for "the word" is as vigorous as in Judaism and in Christianity, but an extra dimension is, that the revealed text, the Koran, is considered to be verbatim the word of the Almighty Himself, thereby providing the Arabic language with just an extra quality. No wonder that throughout Islamic history the study of the word, the Koran, the prophet's utterances and the interpretation of both, has become the main axis of knowledge and education. As a consequence the intellectuals - and also the poets in Islamic culture - were thoroughly familiar with religious terms and the phraseology of a language which was highly estimated because of the divine origin with which it was associated. No wonder therefore, that allusions to religious texts can be found throughout Arabic literature, both classical and modern. The subject of this volume is the representation of the divine in Arabic poetry, be it the experience of the divine as expressed by poets or the use of imagery coined by religion.
This work deals with "wasf" or description which is one of the salient characteristics of the "qasidah" (classical Arabic poetry) tradition. It examines descriptive passages in a selected group of Arabic "qasidah" from different ages, with the motifs of horses, and bees and honey-gathering.
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A critical survey of the development and achievements of Arabic poetry over the last 150 years.
This translation of Nizar Kabbani's poetry is accompanied by the striking Arabic texts of the poems, penned by Kabbani especially for this collection. Kabbani was a poet of great simplicity - direct, spontaneous, musical, using the language of everyday life. He was a ceasless campaigner for women's rights, and his verses praise the beauty of the female body, and of love. He was an Arab nationalist, yet he criticized Arab dictators and the lack of freedom in the Arab world.
"The purpose of this book is to trace the development of the differing forms employed in various liteary movements in modern Arabic poetry. This development seems to me the most important elemment in the understanding of the contemporary revolution in Arabic poetry. Moreover, this revolution is considered to be the first in the history of Arabic poetry in which the influence of foreign literature has been such that it las almost completely cut off modervn Arabic poetry from its classical heritage." from Introduction.