Pre-Islamic Arab poetry
Buka' `ala al-atlal (weeping over the ruins)
Is it Umm Awfa's, this unspeaking ruin \\ in the rocky plain between Darraj and Mutatallam?
And that abode of hers at Raqmatayn, resembling \\ retraced tattoo marks among the veins of the wrist?
--Zuhayr (d. 609)
fakhr (boasting)
Well have the Ma`addi tribes experienced \ when on their plain the tents are pitched
That we are the ones who feed when we have means, \\ And we the ones who ravage when we are tested.
--Amr ibn Kulthum
