{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp090_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp090_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp090_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/arp090.htm","summary":"This is an excerpt from W. A. Clouston's 1881 anthology *Arabian Poetry*, presenting a passage from the medieval Arabic romance epic *Antar* (also known as *Sirat Antar*), one of the great pre-Islamic and early Islamic heroic cycles of Arabic literature. The excerpt introduces the hero Antar, born of a Black enslaved woman named Zebeebah and her Arab master Shedad, and traces his early youth as a boy of exceptional physical strength \u2014 killing a wolf at ten, mastering horsemanship, and honing his javelin skills in the desert. The central episode depicts a turning-point moment: a bullying slave named Daji seizes a watering place from poor tribespeople and violently humiliates an elderly woman, and the young Antar intervenes, beats Daji to death, and fights off an entire mob of slaves with a stick. This act of violent chivalry \u2014 defending the honor of a vulnerable Arab woman despite his own enslaved and socially marginal status \u2014 earns Antar the praise of King Zoheir and marks his emergence as a warrior of note. The passage is notably concerned with questions of honor, racial identity, and social hierarchy in Bedouin society: Antar's mixed-race birth is foregrounded, and his heroic valor serves as his claim to legitimacy within a world that otherwise ranks him low. Readers interested in pre-Islamic Arab heroic tradition, the literary construction of the noble outsider, or early Arabic prose romance will find this excerpt representative of the epic's characteristic blend of action, tribal ethics, and social tension.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Arabian Poetry: The Romance of Antar: The Hero's Birth and Early Years","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":961}