In my paper I wish to discuss the fascinating practice of inscribing poetry on objects, a practice that was prevalent among a group of courtiers and other members of the elite in ?Abb?sid society, known as the ?uraf?? (“the refined ones”). The ?uraf?? conducted themselves according to a strict etiquette governing their dress, posture, speech, and even smell, all of which distinguished them from non-?uraf??. This etiquette (?arf) reached its peak around the ?Abb?sid court in 8th-9th-century Baghdad, but soon spread to other Islamic courts, from Aleppo to al-Andalus. As part of the ?arf etiquette, ?uraf?? would inscribed poetic verses on a variety of objects from garments (shirts, hats, bands, shoes and sandals), rings, musical instruments, wine vessels to apples. They also inscribed poetry on their own bodies, notably on the forehead and cheek. Many of these inscribed objects were used as presents by one ?ar?f to another. I would like to investigate this practice of inscribing poetry on objects as a unique way of “performing” poetry. In this “refined” practice, poetry was not recited aloud, but rather given a voice by virtue of its physical display in space. When given as presents, poetry-decorated objects served as a “refined” way of communication, often between a lover and his/her beloved. A lover would send his beloved a gift bearing an encoded message in verse, and she/he would respond with a gift bearing his/her own message. Unlike a more conventional correspondence between lovers (including in verse), which is essentially private, the use of objects inscribed with verses added a public dimension to the communication. The private correspondence was soon on public display when the recipient of the object would put the object to use. A major source for my investigation is Kit?b al-muwashsh? (also known as al-?arf wa-l-?uraf??) by Ab? ?ayyib al-Washsh?? (d. 937). The work is one of the richest sources on ?arf culture and its etiquette. I also use a later source, Ma??li? al-bud?r by ?Al?? al-D?n al-Ghuz?l? (1412).

Classical Arabic literature is full of astronomical imagery, much of which is entirely figurative, and yet a large number of the poetic descriptions of celestial bodies, their movement across the sky and their orientations relative to the horizon reveal that many Arab poets possessed intimate knowledge of the night sky, a knowledge that in turn inspired certain elements of their poetry. This paper investigates the role of astronomical phenomena in selections of pre-Islamic and early Islamic classical Arabic poetry gleaned from Ibn Qutayba's Kitaab al-Anwaa', and in particular that of Dhu al-Rumma (d. 735 CE/117 AH). The author uses a cross-disciplinary approach that employs literary and lexical analyses of the texts, astronomical positional analyses and botanical identification of the period flora cited in the poetry. Using this information, the author demonstrates that classical Arab poets applied references to specific stars and constellations as familiar celestial timepieces to indicate the poetic timeframe literally and accurately. The poets often used botanical information to establish the time of year, thereby enabling the stellar positions to determine time of night. Because these poetic descriptions of the sky are so accurate, proper astronomical identification of these stellar positions informs a more accurate interpretation and translation of the original Arabic terms. The results of this investigation shed light on the utility of naked-eye observational astronomy as an interpreter of Arabic poetic terminology and the influence of period folk astronomy on the poetic material culture of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods. The author presents this paper in recognition of 2009 as the UNESCO International Year of Astronomy.

Few scholars have attempted to reconsider the approaches taken to examine pre-Islamic poetry written by Arab women. The normative approach to Arab women’s poetry is to consider their work monothematic, uncreative, and inferior to the poetry of Arab men. Suzanne Stetkevych claims that women’s limited poetical expression, in the form of rith? (elegy) and ta?r?? (vengeance), is prescribed by their limited gender roles in Arab society (Stetkevych, 1993, 161). Yet, in an effort to curtail some of the biasness against Arab women’s poetry, Stetkevych proffers the idea of examining pre-Islamic poetry as a ritual paradigm. Her reasoning is: poetry that is “ritually determined, cannot be judged by Romantic concepts of ‘originality’ and sincerity’” (Stetkevych, 1993, 162). While this argument rebuttals the criticism of inferiority and uncreativeness, it does little to counter the bias notion that women’s poetry is monothematic. Hence, I propose we examine Arab women’s poetry in light of a discourse theory, as it will prove to be more productive in understanding the multiple dimensions of Arab women’s poetry in the pre-Islamic period. By applying discourse theory to poetry, I aim to study the interaction between an Arab poetess and her interlocutor as a dialogue between poets. Paul Friedrich notes in Dialogue in Lyric Narrative that “the deep structure of poetry is always dialogic, whereas the surface structure is only rarely so” (Friedrich, 1997, 79). Thus, in my study of Arab women’s poetry, I am mainly concerned with this deep structure of poetry, as it will demonstrate that women’s poetry is more complex than scholars have assumed. In this paper I will limit my focus to the poems of Hujayjah, and Hind bint Yazid. These poetesses have written a number of short poems revolving around the pre-Islamic Perso-Arab wars. By examining the deep structure of their poems we will discover multiple dialogues, which ipso facto is antithetical to what has become the normative expectation of Arab women’s poetry. Hence, I conclude that once all the elements to create a dialogue exist, i.e. poetry and interlocutors in a context of shared or overlapping experiences, we have a suitable structure from which we can reevaluate Arab women’s poetry. As we examine the deep structure of women’s poetry we will encounter multiple dialogues, creativity, and the dynamic role that women played in the pre-Islamic era.