Dhu ar-Rumma


Abū l-Ḥārith Ghaylān b. ʿUqba, generally known as Dhū al-Rumma was a Bedouin poet and a rāwī of al-Rāʿī al-Numayrī. In the assessment of Nefeli Papoutsakis, 'he stands at the end of a long poetic tradition which, for the most part, expressed the ethos and intellectual preoccupations of the pre-Islamic tribal society of Bedouin Arabs—a fact reflected in the saying of Abū 'Amr b. al-'Alā' that "poetry was closed with Dū r-Rumma" '.

Life

Little reliable information about Dhu ar-Rumma's life is available, but various later sources suggest the following: his mother was called Ẓabya and of the Asad tribe. He himself belonged to the ʿAdī tribe, which was part of the Ribāb confederation, and therefore probably lived in Al-Yamāma and its vicinity. He had three brothers, who also composed poetry: Hishām, Masʿūd, and Jirfās. He seems to have spent part of his life in the cities of Iraq, notably Basra and Kufa, where it seems he spent time with such poets as al-Farazdaq, Jarīr ibn 'Atiya, Ruʾba, and al-Kumayt, and the scholars Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ, ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī, and Ḥammād al-Rāwiya. He may have been a professional poet. He fell in love with and later married a woman called Mayya, from the Banū Minqar, but his odes also celebrate one Ḥarqā', of the 'Āmir b. Ṣa'ṣa'a.

Work

Ar-Rumma's extensive diwan was widely studied, attracting commentaries from Abū Naṣr Aḥmad ibn Ḥātim al-Bāhilī and Abū al-ʿAbbās Thaʿlab. Its themes and forms included love poetry, self-praise about himself and his tribe, eulogy, invective, and riddles. His poetry is particularly noted for its detailed descriptions of animals.
In the assessment of Nefeli Papoutsakis,
Contemporary views of his poetry were generally negative: he is said to have been incompetent in satire and eulogy, an unjustified criticism, due to the prevalence of travel fakhr in his poetry. He is, nevertheless, regarded as the best poet, in Islamic times, at drawing comparisons. Despite all the reported criticisms, his poetry never ceased to be studied and was often quoted in lexicographical and grammatical works, as well as in adab literature, which speaks for its high artistic quality and popularity. Many prominent figures in Arabic letters—such as the poets al-Ṣanawbarī and al-Maʿarrī, who wrote commentaries on his work, and literati, including the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd —admired his talent. Dhū l-Rumma’s poetry represents a mature phase in the development of the Bedouin poetic tradition but also marks the end of its supremacy. This is succinctly expressed in Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ’s saying that “poetry came to an end with Dhū l-Rumma”.

Lists of poems and manuscript

The following list of manuscripts is based on Macartney's edition.
Macartney’s siglumShelfmarkDate and scribeNotes
DIndia Office 1240contains scholia related to C’s
CCairo, Khedivial Library, Adab 562contains scholia attributed in the MS to Abu’l FatH al-‘Ā’iDī
LLeiden, Leiden University Library, 2028188038 of the longer poems
Lugd.Leiden, Cod. Lugd. 28761 and first 20 lines of 81
L*Lugd. 2029
C
C*
BMLondon, British Library, MS Add. 7573740 AH, MuHammad ibn ‘Alī ibn MadhkūrConcise scholia, related to C’s, and limited vocalisation. Title page says the recension was by al-Asma‘ī.
BMLondon, British Library, MS Add. 7530contain texts and scholia for odes 1, 52, 67, 75
BMLondon, British Library, Or. 415full vocalisation and exceptionally extensive glosses, probably by al-Sikkīt
ConstIstanbul, Faizīyyah Mosque, 1677full and accurate vocalisation and scholia
AmbrMilan, Ambrosian Libraryformerly in San‘ā’

Editions and translations

  • ʿAbd al-Qaddūs Abū Ṣāliḥ, Dīwān Dhī l-Rumma. Sharḥ Abī Naṣr al-Bāhilī, riwāyat Thaʿlab. Based on the editor's Ph.D. thesis.
  • * 1st edn, 3 vols,,, .
  • * 2nd edn, 3 vols,, .
  • * 3rd edn, 3 vols.
  • Muṭī al-Babbīlī, Diwān Dhū l-Rummah.
  • Carlile Henry Hayes Macartney, '.
  • Michael Sells, Desert tracings. Six classic Arabian odes by ʿAlqama, Shánfara, Labíd, ʿAntara, Al-Aʿsha, and Dhu al-Rúmma, pp. 67–76.
  • ', trans. by Arthur Wormhoudt,
  • Rudolf Smend, ''''