Imru al-Qays

Imru al-Qays (?-540?), Arab poet, author of the most famous of seven poems long prized as outstanding examples of the Arabian Peninsula’s poetic tradition before the rise of Islam in the 7th century. This collection of poems, known as the Mu‘allaqāt, served as the linguistic precedent for the language of the Qur'an (Koran), the sacred scripture of Islam. For this reason, the poems have come to assume a canonical status—the works by which all others are judged—within the Arabic literary tradition.

The poems of pre-Islamic Arab authors were transmitted orally and first written down long after their original composition. As a result, little is known about Imru al-Qays, though it is believed that he was a prince of the Kindah tribe. Many stories relate to his life and tell about his wreaking vengeance against the Banū Asad tribe for his father’s murder, his winning ways with women, and his death at the hands of Byzantine emperor Justinian, who is alleged to have sent him a gift of a poisoned cloak.

Imru al-Qays’s poem celebrates tribal values. It extols the virtues of the community by juxtaposing the comfort and security of human company with the daily realities of danger in the solitude of the desert. The poem begins with a mixture of presence and absence, of sadness and nostalgia. The opening line, “Halt, my two companions, and let us weep,” is well-known to every educated Arab. A series of episodes follows in which the poet recounts his attempts to woo women, culminating in a famous image of the poet and his lover sneaking away at night from the tribal encampment. The mood changes as the poet describes the features of absence and loneliness using images of night and a howling wolf. Excitement and action mount again as the poet writes about his horse and its abilities during the hunt. The poem closes with a remarkable depiction of the desert landscape following a flash flood, and drowned animals and blossoming fauna comment on both the fleeting nature and the continuity of life.