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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 2, Book 5 Chapter 50: Arabic Literature, Poetic and Prose Forms A. Poetry Let us imagine an Arab Bedouin riding his camel on frequent long journeys across lonely desserts. While the rhythmic beating of the padded hoofs on soft sand breaks the stillness of the air, the rider is sunk deep in recollections of his own past.

As he feels excited to share his mood with his “two companions and fellow-travellers,” there is nothing more natural than that he should start chanting in unison with the movement which has the sole possession of his entire perception.

This unsophisticated outpouring of one’s heart in response to an occasional urge took the form of rajaz – the simple iambic alternation of harakah (moved or vocalized) and sukun (quiescent consonant) corresponding to the alternation in the lifting and lowering of the camel’s feet. (Cf. the khabab in which the pattern of alternation corresponds to the pace of the horse.) The observation of the effects of the “song” induced a deliberate practice to beguile the man and quicken the animal.

As the practice grew and attracted talent, formalities accumulated by common taste and general acceptance, giving rise to the art of poetry . The art was not slow to create for itself forms much more varied and complex than the original rajaz .

About the middle of the second/eighth century when al-Khalil scrutinized the structure of Arabic poetry according to the quantitative measure suggested to him by the different tones on the rebound of the smith’s hammer (just akin to the camel’s tread) he admirably reduced it to a system of prosody consisting of 16 material forms.

Some foreign influence is not precluded from the development of some of these standard Arabic forms, all of which, of course, did not, and could not, have an equal measure of antiquity or popularity. What is remarkable is that this system of prosody sufficed to serve as the hard core of future indigenous development as well as assimilation of foreign models up to the present day. By the quarter of the fifth century A.D.

when we get our first yet full acquaintance with Arabic poetry, myriads of tribes hailing from different quarters of the country had commingled sufficiently at commercial co-literary fairs, e.g.