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ZUHAYR B. Ab Sulm$ Rab#a b. Riy AL- Muzan , renowned poet of the pre-Islamic era, who, in the judgement of ancient critics, competed for first place with Imru" al- |ays and alNbi9a al- 9ubyn [q.vv.] (Ibn Sallm, abat ful al- 9u#ar", ed. 9kir, 52, 64-5; A9n, ix, 146-7, 158; al- 0ur, Zahr al- db, ed. Mubrak, 1, 90). [XI:557a] His father Rab#a belonged to the tribe of the Muzayna [q.v.], a minor tribe residing to the south of Medina as neighbours of the B. #Abd Allh b. 9aafn [q.v.] and of the B. Murra (an offshoot of the 9aafn), his maternal uncles. Rab#a stayed for some time among the Ban Murra with his mother, but after a dispute over the distribution of booty following a raid, he returned with her to the Muzayna ( A9n, ix, 148). However, he did not remain among them long, since in the course of a raid against the 9ubyn, the Muzayna left him behind. He returned to the Murra, settled among them and married the sister of the poet Ba9ma b. al- 9adr, who was thus the maternal uncle of Zuhayr ( A9n, ix, 157). Zuhayr was born and grew up among the 9aafn, and, according to Ibn |utayba (al- 9i#r wa "l- shu#ar", ed. 9akir, 137), in none of his poems does he refer to his Muzayna ancestry. Zuhayr is classed among the mu#ammarn, those having a remarkably long life, and a well-known verse of the Mu#allaa (v. 47) refers to his already advanced years; in another poem, which incidentally alAma# does not consider authentic (rhyme, liy, al- 9antamar, ed. |abwa no. 17, 9a#lab, ed. Dr al-Kutub, 283-92; cf. al- #Ayn, al- Maid al- nawiyya f 9ar 9awhid 9ur al-alfiyya, Bl 1299, ii, 267-69) and which tells of dahr and the decay of human things, Zuhayr mentions the fall of al- Nu#mn b. al- Mun9ir of al- 0ra [see la9mids ] which took place in 602. He would thus have been living at the beginning of the 7th century (R. Jacobi, Studien zur Poetik der altarabischen Qaide, Wiesbaden 1971, 8) and, according to the A9n, ix, 148, at 100 years old he is said to have encountered the Prophet. The Mu#allaa was composed to celebrate the end of the War of Dis [q.v. in Suppl.] and 9abr", between the #Abs and 9ubyn. This war is said to have lasted 40 years and to have continued some years after the yawm of 9i#b 3abala [q.v.], which apparently took place around the year 550 or, according to a more widespread tradition, in the year 570. Thus the poem celebrates the end of this long war and the two chieftains of the B. Murra who concluded the peace, Harim b. Sinn and al- 0ri9 b. #Awf. The Mu#allaa of Zuhayr, unlike other mu#allat, is linked to a specific historical episode, which it evokes: the personal exploits of an individual of Murra, al- 0uayn b. 4am'am, who, having not accepted the peace accords between the two clans, killed a member of the #Abs. The two chieftains of Murra took responsibility for payment of the blood-price, and peace was finally concluded ( A9n, ix, 148-50). This justly famous poem opens with a long nasb which colourfully describes the departure of the tribe of Umm Awf; it then passes abruptly to a paean praising the generosity of the chieftains, which is intermingled with a description of the horrors of war and the men who wage it, identified directly, without the intermediary of any comparison, with animals that need to slake their thirst with water mixed with blood and to pasture on muddy ground. The poem ends with a section composed of verses having the form of a proverb, some of which have probably been added (see M.C. Bateson, Structural continuity in poetry, Paris-The Hague 1970, 50; G.J.H. van Gelder, Beyond the line, Leiden 1982, 59). The dwn of Zuhayr has been conserved with two principal commentaries (besides the commentaries on the Mu#allaa alone; cf. in this context M. Ab -fa, al- |a"id al- #a9r wa- madir 9arih, #Ammn 1986): the commentary of the Andalusian philologist al- A#lam [XI:557b] al- 9antamar (d. 476/1083) and the commentary of the Kfan 9a#lab (d. 291/904). The former, which forms part of the commentary that al- 9antamar composed on the dwn of six pre-Islamic poets, presents Zuhayrs dwn according to the Baran riwya of al- Ama#, which has been preserved in its entirety, while citing for certain poems the likewise Baran riwya of Ab #Ubayda, which has been preserved in part only. This recension contains 20 poems and has been edited numerous times: by W. Ahlwardt, without commentary, London 1870, by C. Landberg, with al- 9antamars commentary (Primeurs arabes, ii, Leiden 1889) and recently by F. |abwa, Aleppo 1970. This last edition adds a 9ayl, which contains the poems and fragments which feature in the collections of 9a#lab and of the Kfan -a#d" (tutor of the children of Muammad b. Yazdd, vizier of al- Ma"mn, see al- Suy , Bu9ya, i, 256, no. 476; al- Ba9dd, 9iznat al-adab, ed. Hrn, v, 452, considers him weak in grammar, but nevertheless frequently quotes his commentary). The commentary of 9a#lab chiefly presents Zuhayrs dwn according to the Kfan riwya of Ab #Amr al- 9aybn, but he also collates the other Kfan recensions ( 0ammd al- Rwiya and al- Mufa''al al- 4abb) and the Baran recensions, cf. K. Dyroff, Die Geschichte der berlieferung des Zuhairdiwans, Munich 1892, 20, and Nir al- Dn al-Asad, Madir al- 9i#r al- 3hil, Cairo 1956, 530-5. This collection contains 53 poems and fragments and was edited in 1944 by the Dr al-Kutub al- Miriyya, and in 1982 by F. |abwa. Nir al- Dn al-Asad, op. cit., 526-42, and 9aw 4ayf, Ta"r9 al-adab al- #arab, al- #ar al- 3hil, Cairo 1960, 305-6, are of the opinion that only al- Ama#s recension should be taken as an authentic basis for an analysis of the poetry of Zuhayr. Early Arabic criticism attributes to Zuhayr two particular qualities: that of being born into a family of great poetical talent (Ibn al- A#rb [q.v.], A9n, ix, 158; al- #Abbs, Ma#hid al- tan, i, 110; Ibn Ra9, al- #Umda, ii, 306; he was rw of Aws b. 0a3ar, who had married Zuhayrs mother after the death of his father, Ibn Ra9, i, 88, 99, 4ayf, Ta"r9, 300; his maternal uncle was the poet Ba9ma

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b. al- 9adr, A9n, ix, 157); and that of having worked very assiduously on the composition of his poems, something which could have required a great deal of time. Certain of the poems of Zuhayr are in fact called awliyyt, poems which have been pondered over for a year (Ibn |utayba, 9i#r , 78, 144). Furthermore, Zuhayr belonged to a line of poets who were in their turn transmitters ( rw ) of a preceding poet (Ibn Ra9i, i, 198, 201). Without going so far as to suppose, as 3h 0usayn and others after him have supposed, that poetical schools are involved here (M. Zwettler, The oral tradition of classical Arabic poetry, Columbus, Ohio 1978, 86-7; cf. also 4ayf, Ta"r9, 306-7), it may be asserted that the poetry of Zuhayr does appear to be the fruit of a meticulous apprenticeship. According to the 9abar of a poetical tenson or contest between Zuhayr and his son Ka#b, transmitted only by 9a#lab and Sa#d" ( Dwn , ed. Dr al-Kutub, 256-9; A9n, xv, 147-9), Zuhayr is said to have rebuked and even struck his son for composing poems before completing his education (cf. Blachre, HLA, 336 n. 1). These affirmations, all of them pointing in the same direction, are reflected in the judgements of ancient critics and in their manner of citing the poetry of Zuhayr. Al- Ama#, like his master Ab #Amr b. al- #Al", did not have a high opinion of the slaves of poetry ( #abd al- 9i#r), those poets whose verses are polished and refined precisely because they have been [XI:558a] composed without recourse to natural talent (Ibn |utayba, 9i#r , 144, al- 3i, al- Bayn wa "l- tabyn, i, 206, ii, 13, in reference to al- 0uay"a, rw and disciple of Zuhayr), and for this reason he did not consider Zuhayr as a fal, preferring to him al- Nbi9a al- 9ubyn ( Fulat al- 9u#ar", ed. Torrey, in ZDMG , lvi [1911], 492; A9n, iii, 25). On the other hand, critics of the classical epoch not only judged that this toiling over verse was a positive aspect of this poetry, but they were also often aware that this concern with form went beyond the mark of the verse taken in isolation. The expression l yu#ilu f/bayn al- kalm/bayn al- awf/al-kalimatayn, whereby #Umar b. al- 9ab defined the poetry of Zuhayr (Ibn |utayba, 9i#r , 137-8; A9n, ix, 148; Ibn Sallm, abat, 63), is thus explained in the Risla al- M'ia of al- 0tim (d. 388/998), ed. Na3m, 91, as avoiding pairing words that are not of the same genus. Al- #Askar (K. al- -in#atayn, 169) in the chapter dealing with s" al- nam, gives a similar explanation, and adds that this defect, from which the greatest of the ancient poets were not exempt, is not to be found in the poetry of Zuhayr. At 107-8, this same critic cites an example of mad, drawn from the Mu#allaa, in which the theme is developed over several verses, according to logical transitions which al- #Askar does not fail to point out. It often happens that images or a wafare deployed over several verses which, while retaining their formal autonomy, are dependent one upon the other; Zuhayr is above all a skilled engraver, who represents both his poetical themes and his ideas by means of images which have, in every detail, a visual force. Al- #Askar also mentions other verses which are well constructed and well balanced ( -in#atayn , 367, 401; Ibn Ra9, al- #Umda, i, 333) and he underlines, several times, the formal means whereby Zuhayr surmounts the difficulties of the end of the verse and of rhyme ( -in#atayn , 466, 468-69; Ibn Ra9, al- #Umda, ii, 3) and all the critics acknowledge in him the qualities of weightiness and of solidity (Ibn Sallm, abat, 64; Ibn |utayba, 9i#r , 144). Al- Marz ( 9ar Dwn al- 0amsa, 9) interprets the ancient judgement of the poetry of Zuhayr attributed to #Umar b. al- 9ab (he praised people only for the qualities that they have, Ibn Sallm, abat, 63) not in the moral sense but in the poetical sense of a successful description ( ibat al- waf). Among poetic genres, madis the most frequently represented (11 poems out of the 20 most positively authentic), honouring in particular the chieftains of 9aafn, and this corresponds to the expressions used by tradition in defining Zuhayr as amda al- awm(Ibn |utayba, 9i#r , 144) or indeed in saying that Zuhayr was a9#ar al- ns . . . i9 ra9iba (judgment attributed to the grammarian Ynus b. 0abb, d. 182/798, in A9n, viii, 77; al- #Askar, -in#atayn, 29; Ibn Ra9, al- #Umda, i, 95), while recognising that he was not in thrall to the lure of gain (ibid., i, 81). Numerous traditions refer to the praises addressed by Zuhayr to Harim b. Sinn as a monument aere perennius, while the gifts that Zuhayr received from him had been eroded by time ( A9n, ix, 146); |udma b. 3a#far, Nad al9i#r, ed. Bonebakker, 33-4, cites long passages from the mad"i of Zuhayr, to serve as an example. Less numerous are the i3" poems. Ibn Ra9, al- #Umda, ii, 66, 171, considered that in this poetical genre Zuhayr had proved himself a stylist both caustic and pure; cf. van Gelder, The bad and the ugly, Leiden 1988, 16. Other poems relate to personal affairs, such as his repudiation of his first wife, Umm [XI:558b] Awf ( Dwn , al- 9antamar, no. 16; 9a#lab, ed. Dr al-Kutub, 342; according to al- Yazd, Aml , 133, Muammad b. 0abb considered these verses apocryphal), who was jealous of his second wife, the mother of Zuhayrs sons Ka#b, Bu3ayr and Slim. The last-named died young, and Zuhayr composed a ri9" for him (not transmitted by al- 9antamar; A9n, ix, 157; Dwn , 9a#lab, ed. Dr alKutub, 340-1). Four poems deal with the theft of camels belonging to Zuhayr, and the abduction of their herdsman by a member of the Ban Asad who, as a result of some menacing verses on the part of the poet, decided to send the slave back to him ( Dwn , 9a#lab, ed. Dr al-Kutub, 164-83, 300-12; al- 9antamar, nos. 5-8; cf. al- Ba9dd, 9izna , v, 453-58; according to al- Ama#, the first of these poems was the finest kfiyya in the Arabic language).

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(Lidia Bettini) There hardly exists a poetical study that does not mention the poetry of Zuhayr. In addition to sources given in the article, see Wahhb, Mar3i# tar3im al- udab", iii, 139-46 Fu"d al- Bustn, Zuhayr b. Ab Sulm, Beirut 1929 G.E. von Grunebaum, Pre-Islamic poetry, in MW , xxxii (1942), 147-53 A.J. Arberry, The Seven Odes, the first chapter in Arabic literature , London 1957, 90-118 M.J. Kister, The Seven Odes, in RSO, xliv (1969), 27-36 A. El-Tayib, ch. Pre-Islamic poetry, in Camb. hist. of Arabic lit. Arabic literature to the end of the Umayyad period, Cambridge 1983, 68-70 E. Wagner, Grundzge der klassischen arabischen Dichtung, i, Darmstadt 1987 J.E. Montgomery, art. s.n., in J.S. Meisami and P. Starkey (eds.), Encycl. of Arabic literature , London and New York 1998, ii, 827 Sezgin, GAS, ii, 118-20, ix, 255-6.

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