Dhur Rummah

Dhu’r Rummah

 

(nickname of Ghailan ibn Ugbah). Born 696; died 735. Arab poet.

In his work, Dhu’r Rummah revived pre-Islamic poetic traditions. He wrote poems that in their form did not differ from the qasida of the pre-Islamic Bedouin poets, introducing into their themes Islamic elements. Especially popular were his rawiyat (pastorals), in which the natural beauty of the desert and the life of the herdsmen are vividly described. Imitating the Bedouin poets, he also revived the poetic form of the urjuza, in which a single rhyme is repeated not only at the ends of the lines but also at the hemistichs (internal rhyme). The work of a gifted lyric poet, Dhu’r Rummah’s poetry is popular among readers of Arabic literature even today.

WORKS

The Diwān of Ghailan ibn Uqbah Known as Dhu’r Rummah. Edited by C. H. H. Macartney. Cambridge, 1919.

REFERENCES

Krachkovskii, I. lu. Izbr. sock., vol. 2. Moscow-Leningrad, 1956.
Fil’shtinskii, I. M. Arabskaia klassicheskaia literatura. Moscow 1965.
Brockelmann, C. Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, vol. 1, 2nd ed. Leiden, 1943.

V. M. BORISOV