e first was a Christian of the tribe of Taghlib, whose Christianity
enabled him to write many verses which would have been impossible to a
professing Moslem. Protected by the caliph he employed the old weapons
of satire to support them against the "Helpers" and to exalt his own
tribe against the Qaisites. Farazdaq of the Bani Tamim, a good Moslem
but loose in morals, lived chiefly in Medina and Kufa, and was renowned
for his command of language. Jarir of another branch of the Bani Tamim
lived in Irak and courted the favour of Hajjaj, its governor. His
satires were so effective that he is said to have crushed forty-three
rivals. His great efforts were against Farazdaq, who was supported by
Akhtal (cf. _The Naka'id of Jarir and al-Farazdaq_, ed. A.A. Bevan,
Leiden, 1906 foll.). Among many minor poets one woman is conspicuous.
Laila ul-Akhyaliyya (d. 706) was married to a stranger. On the death of
her lover in battle, she wrote numerous elegies bewailing him, and so
became famous and devoted the rest of her life to the writing of verse.
Two poets of the Koreish attained celebrity in Arabia itself at this
time. Qais ur-Ruqayyat was the poet of 'Abdallah ibn uz-Zubair (Abdallah
ibn Zobair) and helped him until circumstances went against him, when he
made his peace with the caliph. His poems are chiefly panegyrics and
love songs (ed. N. Rhodonakis, Vienna, 1902). 'Umar ibn Abi Rabi'a (c.
643-719) was a wealthy man, who lived a life of ease in his native town
of Mecca, and devoted himself to intrigues and writing love songs (ed.
P. Schwarz, Leipzig, 1901-1902). His poems were very popular throughout
Arabia. As a dweller in the town he was independent of the old forms of
poetry, which controlled all others, but his influence among poets was
not great enough to perpetuate the new style. One other short-lived
movement of the Omayyad period should be mentioned. The _rajaz_ poems
(see above) had been a subordinate class generally used for
improvisations in pre-Mahommedan times. In the 7th and 8th centuries,
however, a group of poets employed them more seriously. The most
celebrated of these were 'Ajjaj and his son Ru'ba of the Bani Tamim
(editions by W. Ahlwardt, Berlin, 1903; German trans. of Ru'ba's poems
by Ahlwardt, Berlin, 1904).

With the establishment of the Abbasid dynasty, a new epoch in Arabian
poetry began. The stereotyped beginning of the _qasida_ had been
recognized as antiquated and out of place in city life even in th