Texts of Islam

Arabian Poetry: Introduction: III.—Genuineness of the Early Arabic Poetry

Summary only - full text stays on its own separately-gated source. Read the full text at the source »

This is a scholarly introduction to a 19th-century anthology of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, written by W. A. Clouston in 1881. The passage focuses on the textual reliability of the Mu'allaqāt (the "Seven Prize Poems"), arguing that like Scottish Border Ballads, these works were preserved through oral tradition before being written down, making them vulnerable to interpolation, fraud by professional reciters (Rāwīs), and editorial tampering by the collectors themselves. Clouston surveys the work of German Orientalists — particularly Professor Ahlwardt and Von Kremer — who were attempting to separate genuine pre-Islamic verses from later additions, identifying telltale signs such as misplaced rhyming couplets and missing conventional openings. A distinctive thread of the argument concerns religious interference: Clouston examines the claim that Islamic-era collectors purged pagan references while inserting Qur'ānic sentiments, but finds this inconsistent — pagan allusions and wine references survived — and notes that some tribes already held monotheistic beliefs before Muhammad, which complicates the picture. The passage is notably even-handed about scholarly bias, warning that critics hunting interpolations risk projecting their own theories onto the texts. Despite conceding widespread corruption of the corpus, Clouston closes on an optimistic note: enough genuine pre-Islamic poetry survives to make serious study of the ancient Arabs possible.

Arabian Poetry: Introduction: III.—Genuineness of the Early Arabic Poetry

Related pages View as graph →