the most famous poem extant in praise of the Prophet. In the
provinces of the caliphate there were many poets, who, however, seldom
produced original work. Spain, however, produced Ibn 'Abdun (d. 1126),
famous for the grace and finish of his style (ed. with commentary of Ibn
Badrun by R.P.A. Dozy, Leiden, 1846). The Sicilian Ibn Hamdis
(1048-1132) spent the last fifty years of his life in Spain (_Diwan_,
ed. Moacada, Palermo, 1883; _Canzoniere_, ed. Schiaparelli, Rome, 1897).
It was also apparently in this country that the strophe form was first
used in Arabic poems (cf. M. Hartmann's _Das arabische Strophengedicht_,
Weimar, 1897), and Ibn Quzman (12th century), a wandering singer, here
first used the language of everyday life in the form of verse known as
_Zajal_.

_Anthologies._--As supplemental to the account of poetry may be
mentioned here some of the chief collections of ancient verse, sometimes
made for the sake of the poems themselves, sometimes to give a _locus
classicus_ for usages of grammar or lexicography, sometimes to
illustrate ancient manners and customs. The earliest of these is the
_Mo'allakat_ (q.v.). In the 8th century Ibn Mofaddal compiled the
collection named after him the _Mofaddaliyat_. From the 9th century we
have the Hamasas of Abu Tammam and Buhturi, and a collection of poems of
the tribe Hudhail (second half ed. in part by J.G.L. Kosegarten, London,
1854; completed by J. Wellhausen in _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, i.
Berlin, 1884). The numerous quotations of Ibn Qutaiba (q.v.) in the
'Uyun ul-Akhbar (ed. C. Brockelmann, Strassburg, 1900 ff.) and the _Book
of Poetry and Poets_ (ed. M.J. de Goeje, Leiden, 1904) bring these works
into this class. In the 10th century were compiled the _Jamharat ash'ar
al Arab_, containing forty-nine poems (ed. Bulaq, 1890), the work
_al-'Iqd ul-Farid_ of Ibn' Abdi-r-Rabbihi (ed. Cairo, various years),
and the greatest work of all this class, the _Kitab ul-Aghani_ ("Book of
Songs") (cf. ABU-L FARAJ). The 12th century contributes the _Diwan
Mukhtarat ush-Shu'ara'i_ with fifty qasidas. The _Khizanai ul-Adab_ of
Abdulqadir, written in the 17th century in the form of a commentary on
verses cited in a grammar, contains much old verse (ed. 4 vols., Bulaq,
1882).

_Belles-Lettres and Romances._--Mahomet in the Koran had made extensive
use of _saj'_ or rhymed prose (see above). This form then dropped out of
use almost entirely for some time. In the 10th century, however, it