{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp140_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp140_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp140_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/arp140.htm","summary":"This is \"B\u0101nat Su'\u0101d\" (Su'\u0101d Has Departed), a celebrated Arabic qasida attributed to Ka'b ibn Zuhayr, here in W. A. Clouston's 1881 English translation from his anthology *Arabian Poetry*. The poem follows the classical three-part qasida structure: an elegiac opening lamenting the departure and faithlessness of the beloved Su'\u0101d (rendered \"Beatrice\"), an extended middle section cataloguing the physical virtues of a she-camel capable of crossing the desert to reach her, and a closing panegyric praising the Prophet Muhammad and his Qurayshi warriors. The poem is distinctive for being a genuine act of political submission: Ka'b composed it after having satirized the Prophet, and presented it in person at Medina as a plea for pardon, making the transition from love lament to prophetic praise not merely conventional but urgent and autobiographical. The she-camel passage (verses 14\u201333) is among the most technically elaborate in Arabic poetry, accumulating anatomical detail with near-obsessive precision as a demonstration of craft. The closing eulogy is notably martial, depicting Muhammad as a drawn blade and his companions as fearless, grief-proof warriors \u2014 praise calculated to flatter a conquering power capable of granting or withholding the poet's life.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Arabian Poetry: Ka\u2018b's Poem of the Mantle: Ka\u2018b's Poem of the Mantle","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":1351}