(sixth century) poet
‘Amr ibn Kulthum was among the classic Arabic poets who flourished in the century before muhammad. Though not considered a great innovator, his inclusion in the Mu’allaqat (The Seven Odes), the standard collection of pre-Islamic poetry, has given him a place in literary history.
Like many of the pre-Islamic poets, ‘Amr was of high birth and a chief of the Taghlib tribe that lived in the mid-Euphrates River area of Iraq. He was the grandson of al-Muhalhil, himself a celebrated Taghlib chief and poet. Little is known of’Amr’s life, but some of the feats alluded to in his poems were later accepted as facts. For example, one legend has ‘Amr beheading the powerful Lakhmid king ‘Amr ibn Hind (ca. 568) for allowing the poet’s mother to be insulted. Within a century of his death, reputedly by drinking too much unmixed wine, he had become a legendary hero in Arabic tales.
There are not many surviving examples of ‘Amr’s poetry, but one of his longer poems (untitled) was included in the Mu’allaqat when it was assembled in the late eighth century. In his qasi-dah (ode), ‘Amr fiercely extols the strength, courage, and cruelty of his tribe, and hurls threats against its foes:
Ours the right of the wells, of the springs untroubled; theirs the dregs of the plain, the rain-pools trampled.
This type of writing is a classic example of the fakhr (boasting) often found in Arabic poetry of the time. ‘Amr’s poem became so popular among his Taghlib tribesmen that they expanded it in the retelling from 100 to 1,000 lines, and the ode has since influenced subsequent generations of Arabic poets.
An English Version of a Work by Amr ibn Kulthum
Untitled Ode in The Seven Odes: The First Chapter in Arabic Literature. Translated by A. J. Arberry. New York: Macmillan, 1957.
A Work about Amr ibn Kulthum
Nicholson, R. A. A Literary History of the Arabs. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1966, 109-113.
