{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp010_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp010_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp010_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/arp/arp010.htm","summary":"This is a scholarly introduction and synopsis of one of the Mu'allaqat \u2014 the pre-Islamic Arabic odes considered the pinnacle of classical Arabic poetry \u2014 specifically the poem by Amriolkais (Imru' al-Qais), from W. A. Clouston's 1881 anthology. The poem follows its speaker as he pauses at the abandoned campsite of a former lover, and uses that melancholy occasion to recount a series of youthful adventures: a voyeuristic bathing episode where he holds the women's clothes hostage, a camel slaughtered for an impromptu feast, and courtships of multiple women including one from an enemy tribe. The poem then shifts to praise the speaker's own courage in a night desert crossing, a hunting scene, and closes with a dramatic storm. The framing note from Sir William Jones positions the Mu'allaqat as an authentic ethnographic record of pre-Islamic Arab character \u2014 passionate, open-hearted, and largely unchecked by law or religion. Distinctively, the synopsis characterizes the poem as a \"dramatic pastoral,\" noting its loose dramatic structure and episodic, digressive form, before briefly touching on its complex quantitative meter.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Arabian Poetry: The Moallak\u00e1t: The Poem of Amriolkais: The Argument","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":684}