Ab¯u Tamm¯am was a prime exponent of the badi,
or new school of Arab poetry that emerged in the
Abbasid period. He was also one of the first to assemble
an anthology of pre-Islamic and other early
Arabic poetry.
Born in Syria to a Christian family, Ab¯u
Tamm¯am converted to Islam in his youth, changed
his name to indicate descent from a noble Arab
tribe, and moved to Cairo to study Arabic poetry.
He specialized in panegyrics, poems extolling leading
figures of the day, from the Abbasid caliphs
(rulers) al-Ma’mun and al-Mu‘tasim to provincial
governors who would pay for the service.
The most famous of Ab¯u Tamm¯am’s panegyrics
is his ode “Amorium,” which celebrates al-
Mu‘tasim’s victory over the Byzantines in 838: “O
day of the Battle of ‘Ammuriya, [our] hopes have
returned from you overflowing with honey-sweet
milk; / You have left the fortunes of the sons of
Islam in the ascendant, and the polytheists and the
abode of polytheism in decline.”
Ab¯u Tamm¯am’s innovative style aroused criticism
in his day and from later commentators. His
use of archaic words, far-fetched similes, and
homonyms was often considered mannered, abstract,
and overly sophisticated. His poems were
unfavorably compared with the supposed naturalism
of earlier poets, and the debate became an important
stimulus to the tradition of Arab linguistic
and literary criticism.
As an anthologist, Ab¯u Tamm¯am put together
several diwans, or poetry collections, the most famous
of which is al-Hamasa (Heroism), consisting
of hundreds of poems from pre-Mohammed Arabia
down to his own time, mostly by less famous
poets. Unlike his own poetry, the works he collected
and thus helped preserve have been universally
celebrated as among the purist models of
classic Arabic form.
English Versions of Works by Ab¯ u Tamm¯am
“Amorium.” In Night and Horses and The Desert.
Edited by Robert Irwin.Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook
Press, 2000, 132–135.
Arberry,A. J., ed. Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students.
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press,
1965.
A Work about Ab¯ u Tamm¯am
Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney. Abu Tammam and the
Poetics of the Abbasid Age. Boston: Brill Academic
Publishers, 1991.