The positive function of the qafiyah in laying down rails...

The positive function of the qafiyah in laying down rails, so to say, for the movement of thought, is demonstrated by the spontaneous rush of the imagination of the audience to the end – almost the entire later half – of a line ahead of actual recitation by the poet.[^1] Such a thrilling experience of effective communion between the poet and his audience is in no way rare wherever Arabic poetry (or Persian or Urdu poetry for that matter) is recited even today.

This is quite apart from the practical utility of the qafiyah in helping memorization as alluded to before. In the sociological fabric of the pre-Islamic time the poet occupied a very high and influential position. The popular mind was impressed so deeply with the efficacy of his art that it believed him to be in communion with some super-natural source vaguely identified with a jinnee or a devil.

But the conception about his art was the same as about the skill of a horseman, it had to be consecrated entirely to the cause of the solidarity and the ascendancy of the tribe. The poet had a task irrevocably assigned to him, which was to act the spokesman and the counsel on behalf of the tribe.

Hence, he was expected to specialize in a knowledge of the tribal saga supporting the cause for his clients and against their rivals.[^2] In short, poetry was appreciated primarily as a weapon of offence and defence in the struggle of tribes against tribes; its function was to commemorate the glories of the poet’s own tribe, exalt its achievements in war and peace, and embolden it against the other tribes by holding them to scorn.

There was little room for the personality of the poet to detach itself even for a while from the interests and the fortune of the tribe.

Naturally enough, the motifs of pre-Islamic poetry sprang fundamentally from the spirit of the jahiliyyah – the ignorance of a moral code of conduct characterized by a strong sense of tribal solidarity based on blood kinship, and highly volatile passions cramped within stinted sympathies and primary selfish impulses.[^3] Thus, the two oldest kinds of verse were the hija’ (satire) and the fakhr (self-glorification) with the keynote of the hamas or desperate pursuit of unbridled aggression.

True, the nasib (erotic verse) also must have had an independent form in the oldest time but all the same it could not have occupied a position other than the subsidiary one which is assigned to it in the scheme of the qasidah .