18 - The poetry of the Sīrah literature

Summary

The earliest extant source for the poetry of the Sīrah literature1 is al-Sīrat al-nabaiviyyah, composed by Muhammad b. Ishāq b. Yasar b. Khiyār (c. 85–150/704–67), which has survived in the edition made by Abū Muhammad 'Abd al-Malik b. Hishām (d. 13 Rabī 11 218/8 May 833, or in 213/828). Although the work is in prose, much occasional poetry is included in it to illustrate historical events. Later critics have tended to consider a large part of this poetic corpus spurious, although Ibn Ishāq himself admitted to his contemporaries that he was no fine critic of poetry, and that he merely restricted himself to the modest role of the compiler, not tampering with the texts he was provided with by his informants, but merely recording them verbatim. As will be seen, the author's uncritical acceptance of what he gathered from the contemporary poetic tradition makes the poems all the more valuable as an example of early Islamic verse.

A large number of the poems included in the work is attributed to the “poet laureate” of the Prophet, namely Hassān b. Thābit b. al-Mundhir b. Harām al-Khazrajī (d. 40/659, 50/669, or in 54/673). Many of these, in the form recorded by Ibn Ishaq, which often differs considerably from that found in other recensions, could not possibly have been composed by Hassan himself. Hassān had already established his reputation as a poet in the pre-Islamic era and did not put his art at the service of Muhammad until he was well into his fifties.