Texts of Islam

Arabian Poetry: Ka‘b's Poem of the Mantle: Ka‘b's Poem of the Mantle

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This is "Bānat Su'ād" (Su'ād 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'ād (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 14–33) 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 — praise calculated to flatter a conquering power capable of granting or withholding the poet's life.

Arabian Poetry: Ka‘b's Poem of the Mantle: Ka‘b's Poem of the Mantle

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