hijāʾ

Less ornate, if not less elaborate, and more edifying are the ḥaju (derogatory verses, personal and otherwise) and the shahr-āshūb (poems lamenting the decline or destruction of a city). They provide useful information about the mores and morals of the period from…

In the Arabic poetic tradition, hijāʾ (“lampooning”) has been present since the tradition’s earliest days. Such satires could be hurtful, if not fatal, and were easily weaponized; the poet could lead his people into battle, hurling his verses as he would hurl a spear. Early Irish literature is laced with…

…intertribal strife, the satire (hijāʾ) was the shāʿir’s most potent form of magic and equivalent to warfare itself.

…period; second, praise’s opposite—lampoon (hijāʾ)—whereby the poet would be expected to take verbal aim at the community’s enemies and impugn their honour (most often at the expense of women); and third, praise of the dead, or elegy (rithāʾ).

The themes of hijāʾ (“lampooning”) and fakhr (“boasting”) thus often occur together, and poets noted above for their contributions to the panegyric were equally at home with the lampoon. Al-Mutanabbī, in particular, is also famous for his withering attacks on Abū al-Misk Kāfūr, the enslaved Ethiopian who was…

…or panegyric, often coupled with hijaʾ (satire of enemies), is last and is the poet’s tribute to himself, his tribe, or his patron.