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Episode 113, Antara ibn Shad.

In this program, we will consider the writings of the pre-Islamic

Arabic poet Antara Ibn Shad, who likely lived during the second half of the 500s, CE.

A warrior from Nuzh, or the central part of the Arabian Peninsula, Antara's works are a window into the tribal

culture of Bedouin Arabia during late antiquity.

Antara's poems are brutal and beautiful. Raised during a long conflict called the War of

Dajas and Al-Habra. Antara came of age in the saddle, wielding spears and swords against the

enemies of his tribes and their allies. His most famous poem, the Mu al-Aqa, or hanging poem, of

Antara Ibn Shad, is one of the great treasures of classical Arabic literature.

But who exactly Antara was has been hard for posterity to determine with any certainty.

Antara Ibn Shadad, like the other poets of pre-Islamic antiquity from Arabia,

is largely shrouded in mystery.

He likely lived once again during the second half of the 500s CE, but he does not appear in literary or historical sources prior to the 800s

CE. To medieval Islamic scholars writing during the 800s and afterward. Antara was larger than life. An

Arab Odysseus or Cyrano wrapped in legend, a lover, a killer, an outcast, a wanderer,

a bard, a half-blooded upstart who made a name for himself via violence and verse. His corpus, or to use the

Arabic term, Diwan, of poetry, was probably edited and augmented in later centuries. And ages after

the real Antara lived, sometime between 1,200, a popular Arabic epic about Antara was also produced,

weaving 500 or so years of legends about the poet into a vast story, which itself contained

a great deal of poetry. The real Antara Ibn Shad then exists somewhere underneath centuries of later narratives,

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