O BannUmayyah, it was I
who defended you
From the men of a tribe
that sheltered and aided [the Prophet].
I silenced the BannNajjmr’s endless braying
against you
With poems that reached the ears
of every chieftain of Ma‘add,
Until they submitted,
smarting from my words-
For words can often pierce
where sword points fail.
O BannUmayyah, I offer you
sound counsel:
Don’t let Zufar dwell secure
among you...Canonization here works hand-in-hand with a hegemonic discourse that is
allied to the dominating mercantile class in Mecca with its resistance to
Islam. Umayyad critics had to follow the same canon in order to face adver-
sarial poetry, as the naqm’i,genre indicates.^13 It is therefore in this context
that the qaxldahas a polemical ode gains significance. In other words, its
supremacy is the supremacy of the hegemonic discourse with its markers and
designations. Legitimacy as affirmation of control over Islamic polity has its
mechanism and needs, and the effort to sustain the presence of the ode, with
its legitimizing past, continued until recent times.
Classical transgressions
Yet, this alliance between power and the use of a specific poetic form cannot
be taken at face value as representative. There are other poetic practices that
take a different track, not only in terms of social, political, and moral practices,
but also in innovation and challenge to normative applications. The effort to
transgress poetic tradition may well draw harsh criticism, even if the prede-
cessor is no less a talent than al-Mutanabbl(d. 965), whom ‘AbnMu.ammad
al->asan b. Wakl‘ (d. 393 H) took to task for his “extremism and false...
extravagance” for saying “nobody is better than me, or even my equal.”^14
In practice, however, talent and powerful entrenchment in a masculine
tradition make it possible for the poet not only to get away with defiance, but
also to legitimize transgression within the dialectic of aggrandizement and
supplication. This order eventually suffered further rupture whenever social
and cultural change brought about other tempers with no shared agenda and
CONCLUSION: DEVIATIONAL AND REVERSAL POETICS