Tamm¯am ibn Gh¯alib Ab¯u Fir¯as, or al-Farazdaq
(“lump of dough”), was one of the most prominent
and widely popular of the “court poets” of the
Ummayad, or early Muslim period.He was known
for his dissolute life as well as his brilliantly insulting
hija (lampooning).
Born and raised among the Tamim tribal confederacy
in eastern Arabia, Farazdaq spent most of
his career in the city of Basra in southern Iraq. At
one point, he was forced to flee to Medina after
choosing a too-powerful target for one of his hija,
but he was expelled from Medina as well after a
particularly indiscrete adulterous escapade.
Farazdaq made his living by writing fawning
panegyrics (superlative praises) for the Ummayad
caliphs and viceroys and by winning the patronage
of other wealthy men who paid dearly to keep
clear of his vicious pen. He was also an enthusiastic
participant in Basra’s intellectual and social life.
According to some traditions, he was a supporter
of ‘AL¯I IBN AB¯I TAL¯IB, the murdered caliph, and was
jailed for a while at the age of 70 for supporting
‘Ali’s grandson Zayn.
Farazdaq’s personal life was stormy, which is
not surprising in light of the venom and bragging
found in his poetry. He had six or seven wives at
various times, but none brought him happiness.
The decades-long drama of his marriage with his
cousin al-Nawar bint A‘yun and then his longing
for her and regrets after their divorce provided the
subject of many of the poems in his Divan. “The
repentance of Farazdaq” became a popular expression,
fed by such lines as “She was my Paradise
from which I was exiled, / like Adam when he rebelled
against his Lord.”
The poet is quite frank in describing his immoral
personal life. Departing from the Arabic tradition of
ghazal lyrics, which often depict passionate, unrequited
love, Farazdaq’s poems do not idealize his
lovers nor show infatuation for them.
Farazdaq was an energetic, prolific writer whose
poems display a rough style and diction as well as
an awkward syntax. Some critics decry these characteristics
as poetic incompetence, a clumsy attempt
to exploit the rapid changes that were
emerging in spoken Arabic. Others speculate that
the poet was simply trying to update the literary
language, in keeping with the brash and cosmopolitan
urban life of the new Islamic Empire. Indeed,
he was among the first generation of Arab
poets to work in the cities and towns of Iraq and
Syria, rather than the desert of the Bedouin.
Farazdaq’s enduring fame, however, derives
from a 40-year naqa’id (literary feud) that he pursued
with rival poet Jarir ibn ‘Atiyya. The poems
that resulted comprise the Naqaith of Jarir and al-
Farazdaq. Although Arabic poetry was only just
beginning to be written down in this era, the
streams of rhymed, metered insults and obscenities
that poured forth from the combatants were
repeated by thousands of supporters of the two
poets all across the Ummayad realm. The feud was
originally based on tribal and political disputes,
but it eventually became a debate over literary
style.Arab literary circles have continued to debate
the relative merits of the two camps ever since.
Farazdaq played a key role in developing Arabic
literature from its spare desert origins to a vehicle
more suitable for an urban-based empire.His
sometimes-profane spirit won a wide mass audience
for poetry in the new Islamic civilization.
An English Version of a Work by
al-Farazdaq
The Naqaith of Jarir and al-Farazdaq. Translated by
Arthur Wormhoudt. Oskaloosa, Iowa: William
Penn College, 1974.
A Work about al-Farazdaq
Irwin, Robert. Night & Horses & the Desert. Woodstock,
N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2000, 45–47, 56, 67.