Abu Nuwas
7 quotes
Biography
Abu Nuwas was a classical Arabic poet, and the foremost representative of the modern (muhdath) poetry that developed during the first years of the Abbasid Caliphate. He also entered the folkloric tradition, appearing several times in One Thousand and One Nights.
"There are no poems on wine equal to my own, and to my amatory compositions all others must yield."
"ألا فاسقِني خمراً، وقل لي: هيَ الخمرُ ولا تسقني سرّاً إذا أمكن الجهرُ"
"دَعْ عَنْكَ لَوْمِي فَإنَّ اللَّوْمَ إغْرَاءُ"
"He played with sacred formulae, such as the call to prayer: "Come to prayer!" is rendered, in one profane turn, "Come to sleep-together!""
"In an ebullient exchange with the Baghdadi singing-girl ‘Inan he wrote: "Gorgeous one! – God has made your face a qibla for me, /So allow me to pray toward your face, and lets have a kiss." Here "kiss" (qubla) and "the direction of prayer" (qibla) are made to rhyme, an almost inevitable rhyming couplet."
"The following complaint sets perhaps the smuttiest tone about the poet’s detainment: "al-Amin, I languish in the sodomites' prison and fear being buggered. Do you wish them to bugger your very own poet?""
"It is probably a fallacy to assume, as do some literary histories, that Abu Nuwas composed his ascetic pieces at some point towards the end of his life. Rather, he seems to have composed them throughout his career, stimulated as much by particular events and the varying demands of patronage."