poem 3

This is a part of a poem that was written by: Emro'a al-Qais

He is classified as a Jahili Poet (before-Islam), this poem is one of the greatest poems ever written.

أغَرّكِ مني أنّ حُبّكِ قاتِلي     وأنكِ مهما تأمري القلب يفعل 

how to read:
A gharraki minni anna hobbaki qatili      wa annaki mahma ta'moril qalb yaf3ali

Explanation:

are you arrogant because you knew that your love is killing me and my heart will do whatever you ask for.

poem 2

This poem was written by: Qais Bin Al-Mulooh (also named: Majnoon Laila which means "Crazy about Laila")

He loved his Cousin "Laila" and started writing poems about her, and because everyone knew about this love, Laila's father prevented this marriage (Arabs used to consider it as a shame if a love was spread out to the public and then the two couples got married) and forced his daughter to marry another man.

Because of that Qais felt very sad and started wandering everywhere writing poems about Laila until he died.

تعود مريضا أسقمته بهجرها                 ولو عادته عاد لا يعرف السقما

لقد أضرمت في القلب نارا من الجوى        فما تركت عظما ولا تركت لحما

how to read it

ta3oodu mareedhan asqamt'hu behajreha   wa lw 3adat'hu 3ada la ya3refu ssaqama

laqad adhramat fel qalbi naran menal jawa   fama tarakat 3a6'man wa la tarakat la7ma

Explanation

She visits a patient who is sick because of her neglect and abandonment, and whenever she visits him he regains his health back

and because he is missing her too much a fire was ignited in his heart and left no flesh neither bones.

Arabic poetry - poem 1

After writing the previous post, I was very excited so I decided to write another post :)

The title says "Poem", but it is actually a part of a poem only two phrases, I named it this way because it is much easier than writing "part of a poem - 1".

 -- The actual post starts here --

these are one of my favourites, I really can not tell why but I think because of the meaning

It is very famous and considered one of the greatest love-poems phrases that were written in history

The poet name is: Antara Bin Shaddad

He was born in the 6th century, his father was a pure Arabian man and his mother was a slave from what is called now ""Ethiopia". Because of that he looked like a slave not like an Arabian, his father didn't accept him as a son and instead he considered him as one of his slaves and was very cruel to him.

finally his father acknowledged him as his son when he wanted him to participate in war between their tribe and another tribe.

He loved his cousin "Abla", but again because he was black his uncle refused to accept him as a son-in-law, this part of the poem was written in the memory of his love "Abla"

ولقد ذكرتك والرماح نواهل مني     وبيض الهند تقطر من دمي

فوددت تقبيل السيوف لأنها            لمعت كبارق ثغرك المتبسم

Translation:

and I remembered you when the spears were drinking my blood and when the white Indians were dripping out my blood 

so I wished to kiss the swords because they shined like you when you are smiling

Explanation:

In the middle of a battle he was being attacked from different directions with spears and Indian swords* and his blood was everywhere but when the sun was hitting the swords they were shining, so he remembered the smile of the woman he loves and wished to kiss the swords instead of attacking back and defending himself.

*Indian swords were known to be white that is why he said "White Indians"

Arabic Poetry

The beauty of Arabic language can be seen in Poetry, Poetry has this kind of ability to let the reader feels he is living the situation that the poet is trying to describe.

In the Arabic culture, Poetry can be categorized depending on the era they were written:
before-Islam named "Jahiliya" and after-Islam; poetry in this era can also be classified according to the rulers of the Islamic empire and there is of course what is written nowadays: modern poetry and what I call "Bedouins" poetry actually named "Nabati"


I don't want to go very deeply into explaining Arabic poetry history because it will be very confusing and the most important thing I am not an expert I just know few things from here and there.

my favorites are the poetry  that belong to before-Islam and after-Islam (to a certain point), modern poetry are not my interest although I like some of the "Nabati" poems and they are written using Bedouins' dialects which is little difficult for me to understand!

I prefer love poetry - in the Arabic language they are literally named "flirting poetry"-, because in the Arabic culture when a man loves a woman he writes a poem about her describing her beauty thus using the poetry to expose and show his feelings towards her.

The Arabic poetry has a structure, It consist of phrases and each phrase consists of two halves - this structure is applicable to almost all types with some exception in the modern poetry-.

Each main phrase is called "Bayt" which means house in Englishز
and for the two halves, each half is called "Shatr".

so for the upcoming posts -related to poetry-, I will be posting a part of my favorite poems, giving a brief about the poet and then explaining the phrases themselves, 

Hope you like it :)