The Arab poet Imru’ al-Qays was acknowledged as the most distinguished poet of pre-Islamic times by the Prophet Muhammad, by ‘Alī, the fourth caliph, and by Arab critics of the ancient Basra school. He is the author of one of the seven odes in the famed collection of pre-Islamic poetry Al-Mu‘allaqāt.
There is no agreement as to his genealogy, but the pre-dominant legend cites Imru’ al-Qays as the youngest son of ujr, the last king of Kindah. He was twice expelled from his father’s court for the erotic poetry he was fond of writing, and he assumed the life of a vagabond. After his father was murdered by a rebel Bedouin tribe, the Banū Asad, Imru’ al-Qays was single-minded in his pursuit of revenge.
He successfully attacked and routed the Banū Asad, but, unsatisfied, he went from tribe to tribe fruitlessly seeking further help. Through King al- ārith of Ghassān (northern Arabia), Imru’ al-Qays was introduced to the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, who agreed to supply him with the troops that he needed to regain his kingdom. Legend has it that on his return to Arabia the emperor sent him a poisoned cloak, which caused his death at Ancyra (modern Ankara).
The philologists of the Basra school regarded Imru’ al-Qays not only as the greatest of the poets of the Mu‘allaqāt but also as the inventor of the form of the classical ode, or qa īdah, and of many of its conventions, such as the poet’s weeping over the traces of deserted campsites. The open-ing of the long qa īdah by Imru’ al-Qays that appears in the Mu‘allaqāt is perhaps the best-known line of poetry in Arabic: “Halt, you two companions, and let us weep for the memory of a beloved and an abode mid the sand-dunes between Al-Dakhūl and awmal.”
The hunting scenes and bluntly erotic narratives by Imru’ al-Qays in the Mu‘allaqāt represent important early precedents of the genres of hunt poetry and love poetry in Arabic literature. There were at least three collections (divans) of his poetry made by medieval Arab scholars, numbering as many as 68 poems. The authenticity of the greater part of them, however, is doubtful.