Many times when reading through arabic dialogues, stories and incidents in history it’s amazing to see how quickly lines of poetry could be constructed by the Arabs. In a normal conversation, a person would just add in eloquent lines of poetry that he/she had come up with at that very moment in time!
Looking further into this, below are just a few incidents of this phenomenon of شعر العَفَوي
In the time of al-Ma’moon the Khaleef at that time, a certain man apostatized and claimed Prophethood. Al-Ma’moon asked ‘What is your ayah’? He replied with a few lines in which he tried to imitate Soorah al-Kawthar trying to make it relevant to himself, saying:
إنا إعطيناك الجواهر
فصلِّ لربك و جاهر
و لا تطع كل فاجر
Verily, We have granted you Al-Jawaahir (jewels)
Therefore turn in prayer to your Lord and proclaim!
And do not obey every rebellious sinner
As a result, he was sentenced to death. On his way to execution that day, he was carrying the stake upon which he was to die. Abu ‘Itaahiyah, the great poet saw him in this state and went up to him.
He knocked on the piece of wood and recited the following lines as a comeback and humiliation:
إنا أعطيناك العود
فصلِّ لربك من القيود
و إني ضامن ألا تعود
Verily, we have given you the stake!
Therefore turn to your Lord in prayer from the fetters
And I guarantee that you will not return!
It is said that once a man who was learned in grammer left one day to argue and debate with the great grammarian Sibaweyh, author of ‘Al-Kitaab’. He reached his home only to find that Sibaweyh had left and instead his khaadimah (maid) was home. He asked whereabouts Sibaweyh had gone and when he’ll return. She replied with an amazing answer which demonstrated her great eloquence in the Arabic language. Pay close attention to the structure of the arabic words!
فاءَ إلى الفيافي ليفيئ لنا فيئاً
حتى إذا فاء الفيئُ , فاء
He went (faa’a) to the desert (fayaafee) to hunt (yafee’a) for us a game (fay’)
Until when the shadow (fay’) retreats (faa’a), he’ll return (faa’a)
Most of the nouns and verbs she used was derived from the same root word (faa’), and different meanings of the same words… how eloquent and well established in the arabic language she was!
The man left at once! How was he to argue with Sibaweyh if this was how eloquent and gramatically-correct his khaadimah was!
‘Ali ibn Abee Taalib (radhi’Allaahu ‘anhu) one day saw his wife Fatimah (radhi’Allaahu ‘anha) using a siwaak to brush her teeth. He constructed the following lines of poetry on the spot!
قد فُزتَ يا عودَ الأَراكِ بثغْرِها
ما خِْفتَ يا عودَ الأراكِ أراكا
ولو كُنْتَ مِنْ أَهْلِ القتالِ قتلتُكَ
ما فازَ منِّي يا سواكُ سواك
You have seized her mouth of ‘uud of al-Araak
Were you not afraid O ‘uud of al-Araak that I would see you?
Had you been from those who I could fight, I would have killed you
No one has been able to defeat me O siwaak, except you
[Acknowledgement of above to The Mighty Toothbrush]
Amazing Mashaa’Allah!
assalamu alaikum,
masha Allah it is quite intriguing to see the extraordinary ability arabs had to come up with lines of poetry spontaneously…jzakiAllah khair- that was an interesting read.
assalaamu ‘alaykum,
Jazaakillaahu khayran.
Yes subhaanAllaah, it really is quite amazing to see how gifted these people were in expressing themselves so eloquently instantaneously, whilst faultlessly observing the detailed rules of poetry and verse!
What’s more remarkable (as you have mentioned in previous posts maasha’Allaah) is that even the extremely talented kuffaar poets, the like of Waleed ibn al-Mughirah, at the time of the Prophet sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, would acknowledge the Qur’aan was neither the speech of man, nor could they produce the like of it, as it surpassed everything known to them… like the proverb states,
الفضل ما شهدت به الأعداء
Assalamu aleykum
plz put the link of the blog of umm tayyab on ur blog so she wont be forgotten..and ask others to do the same
http://ummtayyab.com/
Wa `alaykumusalaam wa rahmatullaah
Wa iyyaakum
Yes mashaa’Allaah it’s a great talent they had which reflected their literary capabilities. And it’s amazing to note that they did not make any mistakes in neither the grammer nor the ahkaam of shi3r (metres etc) as mentioned. This is why poetry is often used as evidence for language, words of meanings etc throughout the Islamic Sciences (e.g. in Tafseer).
As mentioned by Taalibul-‘Ilm, jazaahullaahu khayran, those who disbelieved in the Message of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) couldn’t bring themselves to argue with the profound literacy of the Qur’aan except that they said it was magic, i.e. unexplainable.
Umm Asiyah, jazaakillaahu khayran… I’ve added her to my blogroll, May Allaah assist her and the rest of our Ummah. Ameen
jazakAllahu khayran
masha’Allah this is very nice…..I am always intrigued by lines of poetry in Arabic, even though my Arabic is horrible and barely understand it.
just listening to the Qur’aan is so amazing, one of the things that really brought me to appreciate my religion more. Specially in poetically inclined cultures like some of those in my city, they know when they hear something that is beautiful, even though they might not understand it. Allah Guides whom He Wills.
Allahu ‘Alim
Wa iyyaakum
Na’am, there is beauty and wisdom in some poetry mashaa’Allah. The Qur’aan is just amazing subhan’Allah in that it’s neither poetry nor prose but yet it has the best of both of them and it has an effect that tugs on the heart and doesn’t leave the mind… mu’athir!
Salam,
Just incase you didnt know you can now use googlevideo on wordpress blogs.
Wasalam
Hearts.
Wa `alaykumusalaam wa rahmatullah
Na’am, i knew there was a code, but I couldnt get it to work in my posts so I abandoned it. Do you know how to insert the url of the video into the actual code?
It’ll help a lot as some videos I wanted were only on Google and not Youtubes.
BaarakAllahu feek
Find the video, on video google, click the link on the side of the screen.
Click Embed HTML to get the code.
Copy that code to something like Notepad. It looks like this:
All you want is the url – http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?
docId=-8459301055248673864
Put the url in between [googlevideo= and ] like this
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?
docId=-8459301055248673864]
and your video should work.
Hearts
Read this link http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/07/29/how-do-i-post-a-google-video/
Its the same as above.
Hearts
Jazaak’Allaahu khayran
Jazakallah Khairan for gathering all these snippets, I have heard some before and were surprised by some I hadn’t heard. This was a very excellently laid out post. Please keep me in your ad’iyyah.
Wa iyyaakum, baarak’Allaahu feek
mashAllah,Allohma barek..bgad rabena yebarek fe ur blog, its really amazing!! bastafid menno keteer awi!! mashAllah la qowata ella be allah,rabena yej3alo fi mizan 7asanatak.Ameen
Ameen wa iyyaaki ukhti khayral jazaa’
BaarakAllahu feeki ‘alaa qawliki at-tayyib 🙂
Arabic… the route of knowledge, the creation of the One with best speech, the light for the darkness of our hearts!
Jazakallah khair for yet another great post sis… I know I’m a bit late but hey ’tis bintyaqub here.. did you expect anything else 😉
Wa iyyaaki ukhti
You’re not too late, in fact I always find myself reading back on old posts/articles etc, easy to forget things!
Bismillah
Alhamdulillah. I am new to blogging and have just discovered your site. Excellent. You have made me think of a wonderful poem I want to post on my own site. Unfortunately, it will be in English.
http://www.muslimwritings.wordpress.com
Jazaakillahu khayran, looking forward to reading the poem 🙂
قل لئن اجتمعت الإنس والجن على أن يأتوا بمثل هذا القرآن لا يأتون بمثله ولو كان بعضهم لبعض ظهيرا
اتق الله فيما تقول فانت عباره عن انسان ليس الا كائن صغير مما خلق الله. اذا اصابك ايدز تصبح وتمسي تسئل الله ان يخفف عنك اذا لدغتك نحله تبقى تتالم اسبوع انت اضعف من ميكروب الايدز فكر لعلك تنجو .
I did not know the content of suspended topic I apologize Please do not get angry.
Salam Fajr,
Can you please make another Arabic gems post. Please forgive my greed. I’m waiting anxiously – hah!