Arábia

1962 — Very Good Turkish Paperback. Roy. 8vo. (24 x 17 cm). In Turkish with facsimile plates of an Arabic manuscript. 10 p. text, [26] pages in [13] plates of original Arabic manuscript from the Ayasofya Kütüphanesi [i.e. St. Sophia Library of Istanbul] preserved in 2926 / 18-31, dated 829 AH. [1412-1413 AD]. Al-Shanfarâ (?-525 CE) was a semi-legendary pre-Islamic poet tentatively associated with ?âif, and the supposed author of the celebrated poem Lâmiyyât al-Arab. He enjoys a status as a figure of an archetypal outlaw antihero (su'luk), critiquing the hypocrisies of his society from his position as an outsider. Al-Shanfarâ is most famous for, supposedly, composing the Lamiyyat al-'Arab, or "L-poem" of the Arabs. Although its attribution has been disputed ever since medieval times, the memorable first-person figure of the misanthropic brigand celebrating his position on the edge of society that the poem draws has strongly influenced views of al-Shanfarâ. We can if nothing else say that if the Lâmiyyât is a later composition, it positions al-Shanfarâ as the archetypal outlaw of a pre-Islamic heroic age, viewed nostalgically from a later era. (Source: Wikipedia).