ABU NUWAS [Abtl `Ali Hal-asan ibn Hani'al-Jiakami] (c. 756-810)

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 80 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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ABU NUWAS [Abtl `Ali Hal-asan ibn Hani'al-Jiakami] (c. 756-810) , known as Abu Nuwas, Arabian poet, was born in al-Ahwaz, probably about 756. His

mother

MOTHER

was a Persian, his father a soldier, a native of Damascus. His studies were made in Ba4ra under Abu Zaid and : Abu 'Ubaida (q.v.), and in Kufa under Khalaf al-Ahmar. He is also said to have spent a year with the

Arabs

ARABS

in the desert to gain purity of language. Settling in Bagdad he enjoyed the favour of Harun al-Rashid and al-Amin, and died there probably about 81o. The greater

part

PART

of his

life

LIFE

was characterized by

great

GREAT

licentiousness and disregard of religion, but in his later days he became ascetic. Abu Nuwas is recognized as the greatest poet of his time. His mastery of language has led to extensive

quotation

QUOTATION

of his verses by Arabian scholars. Genial, cynical, immoral, he drew on all the varied

life

LIFE

of his time for the material of his poems. In his wine-songs especially the manners of the upper classes of Bagdad are revealed. He was one of the first to ridicule the set form of the gaslda (elegy) as unnatural, and has satirized this form in several poems. See I.

Goldziher

GOLDZIHER, IGNAZ (1850– )

, Abhandlungen zur Arabiscken Philologie (Leyden, 1896), i. pp. 145 if. His poems were collected by several Arabian editors. One such collection (the MS. of which is now in Vienna) contains nearly 5000 verses grouped under the ten headings: wine,

hunting

HUNTING (the verbal substantive from " hunt "; O. Eng. huntian, hunta; apparently connected with O. Eng. hentan, Gothic hinpan, to capture, O.H.G. hunda,booty)

, praise,

satire

SATIRE (Lat. satira, satura; see below)

, love of youths, love of women, obscenities, blame, elegies, renunciation of the world. His collected poems (Diwdn) have been published in Cairo (1860) and in Beirut (1884). The wine-songs were edited by W. Ahlwardt under the title Diwdn des Abu Nowas. 1. Die Weinlieder (Greifswald, 1861). (G. W. T.)

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