The War against Time

Pre-Islamic poetry was a series of responses to the violent actions of men fighting for survival in a universe of savage unpredictability, ruled by inexorable Time. This warrior poetry emerges into the light of history in the second half of the sixth century, though it was not written down for some two centuries when it was collected by philologists in Iraq in the latter half of the eighth century.

The majority of the poetry that has survived originated in Najd, the highlands of Arabia. It was produced by a warrior elite and intones a litany of themes: the value of human action in an unpredictable universe; loyalty to family and kin-group; devotion to war and conflict to defend one's group and to endow one's actions with worth; dedication to glorious ancestors; unwa­veringpursuit of a manly ethic, expressed through a warrior's accoutrements: camel and horse, armour and weaponry; the importance of posthumous fame. Set against a backdrop of desert hardship these warrior poets waged unremitting war on time, their ultimate and perpetual enemy.

The Snub-Nosed Doe, al-Khansa', the poetic name of Tumadir bint ‘Amr (d. 644), lost both her brothers, Sakhr and Mu‘awiyah, on the battlefield at the end of the pre-Islamic era. She converted to Islam and spent the rest of her life composing threnodies bemoaning their loss. The following lament for Sakhr is typical of the death-songs she left behind:

Why? Why this reign of terror?

Why does Death claim a hero each day?

Death fixates on our chiefs, chooses our best.

If the world were fair, fate would take other men, not just our heroes.

Death's part of the deal is to come back and demand more. Ours is to pay on time.

Death, why did you not yield to Sakhr?

He was pure, true to his word, a chief, stern but kind, our paragon, these fifty years, God grant him mercy and peace! Autumn rains nourish his grave!^[1120]

Al-Khansa' devoted her life to giving voice to her grief, to the inexpressible sorrow that effectively silenced her, despite the mournful beauty of her many verses.

The pre-Islamic conceptualisation of time included notions of death and fate, of chance and randomness, and of hostility and disease. All acts of violence, be they perpetrated or suffered, were connected with time. Its frequent irruptions into human life and society threatened man by reminding him of the futility of his efforts to protect his kin-group (family, clan and tribe), to preserve his honour (‘ird) through valour (hamasa), and to be true to his ethic (muruwwa). Time's challenge to man was met, not by submissive­ness, but by resistance, by the requital of like with like. If time's cycle had turned and thus made it possible for an enemy to mount a raid or kill kinsfolk in battle, the proper response was to restore honour through retribution, to force the cycle of time to turn by turning the mill of war, almost in spite of time, and thus to regain a state of health through attacking the disease brought by time. Deaths should be avenged, bloodshed should be atoned for through the spilling of blood, insults should be repaid in full, reputations should be built, protected and immortalised through valiant deeds and celebrated in verse, for memory, ancestor worship and the veneration of the glorious dead guaranteed defiance of time. Life was viewed as a violent game of chance. The pre-Islamic ethic required that a man risk his life, be it on the battlefield or through reckless and often violent acts of generosity. This risk of life would ensure the perpetuation of his memory.

Among the corpus of poetry composed and recited by such warriors against time during the century and a half or so before the advent of Islam one figure stands out above all: ‘Antara ibn Shaddad, the black warrior of the tribe of ‘Abs. The poems of ‘Antara, the blow-fly, portray a living embodi­ment of war. His most famous poem, a Mu‘allaqa (i.e., a ‘hanging' poem, a work so celebrated that it was thought to have been written out on cloth and suspended on the walls of the Ka‘ba), is a bravura celebration of the pre- Islamic ethos of violent defiance through surrender to the cosmic forces of annihilation.

This war song is addressed to ‘Abla, a woman the poet loves but who is now unattainable. ‘Antara's state of loss is a manifestation of how time works against the best efforts of man. It is the poet's task to respond to the loss inflicted on him by time. He must satisfy the demands of his ethic, through proving his manliness and imposing his valour on his foes:

The ironweight champion unyielding, avoided by the enemy -

I give him a swift thrust, a straight, well-tested, true-shaft

a spear-gash hole, wide as a well-bucket.

The thud of the thrust sounds the signal to the hungry hyenas. Noblemen are fair game for my spear: it mucks up their fancy clothes! I left him there, meat that night for the predators and they tore him, head to toe.^[1121]

The final lines of the poem reveal that two sons have vowed to avenge the death of their father killed by ‘Antara:

I fear I'll die before the mill of war can pulverise both sons of Damdam. Their vow of vengeance was unprovoked, an attack on my honour, and now they cower and hide. It's time for them to act!

I killed their father - carrion for gimpy hyenas and grizzly vultures.