الشعر عاطفة يتساوى فيها الخلق !

It is narrated that the caliph Al-Ma'mun said to his companions, "Who among you can recite a line of poetry from which we can infer, even if we do not know its author, that it is the poetry of a king?" Some of them recited the words of Imru' al-Qais:

Is it because of a Bedouin woman whose people have settled

In the south of the hills, your eyes are quick to meet?

Al-Ma'mun replied, "You have done nothing! What in this poetry indicates that its author is a king?

Is it not possible that this saying could be uttered by a commoner from the city, as if he is reproaching himself for being attached to a Bedouin woman?" Then he said, "The poetry that indicates its author is a king is the saying of Al-Walid ibn Yazid:

Give me to drink from the wine of Salima's lips

And give this companion a cup of strong wine.

Then he turned to his companions, saying, 'Do you not see his reference in saying - this companion - and that it is a kingly reference?'

It may be that this is from the tales of narrators and their fabrications, so it is not necessarily that the poetry or a reference in it is evidence that its author is a king or a prince and not from the common people, but rather from the freedmen, as was the case in the Abbasid state.

Believing that there cannot be a special distinction in the poetry of these individuals that sets them apart from other poets, whether they are outlaws, creative poets, traditionalists, emotional poets, or even Sufi poets or those belonging to the class of jurists like Urwah ibn Uthaynah, who said:

Indeed, the one who claimed your heart

Was created for your love just as you were created for love of her.

So if I find for her a soothing distraction,

Conscience intercedes with the heart and calms it.

She is white; the bliss has embraced her,

With elegance, it has refined and elevated her.

Indeed, I conceal in my heart my love for her,

Longing, if it were to rise above her, would overshadow her.

And love resides beneath my wings for her;

If it were beneath her bed, it would lessen her.

For poetry is an expression of the emotion of love that overflows from the heart, a sincere expression that reveals the secrets of the human soul and the mysteries of hearts and their innermost thoughts.

They embody in their poems their dreams and the beating of their hearts, and this emotion can be possessed by everyone. A king may love, yearn, and humble himself in poetry for the one he loves.

And so it is with the impoverished; all of them submit to the dominion of love and its oppression. It is the symphony of love that the fingers of the heart play, filled with warmth and sincerity, announcing what love does to the hearts of loving poets, regardless of their traits and social statuses.

Perhaps one of the kings of poetry is Imru' al-Qais, who humbles himself to his beloved in these verses as if she is the one who possesses him:

Is it your charm that my love for you is killing me,

And that whatever you command, the heart obeys?

And that you have divided the heart, so half of it

Is slain, and the other half is shackled with iron?

And your eyes have shed tears only to strike

With your arrows at the heart of a slain one?

O Fatimah, take it easy with some of this indulgence,

And if you have resolved to sever me, then be gentle.

And if my character has displeased you,

Then remove my clothes from your clothes as they unravel.

And this caliph, Al-Mustain Billah, the ruler of Andalusia, says to his beloved in a humble tone:

Do not blame a king who has humbled himself for love;

Humiliation in love is dignity and a second kingship.

He also says:

How strange that the lion fears the edge of my teeth,

And I fear the glance of your beautiful lashes.

And this caliph, Al-Mahdi ibn Ja'far al-Mansur,

Speaks of his love for a maid named Hasna:

I see water, and I am extremely thirsty,

But there is no way to reach it.

Is it not enough for you that you possess me,

And that all people are your slaves?

And that if you were to cut off my hands and feet,

I would say out of satisfaction, 'You have done well, increase it.'

And this caliph, Yazid ibn Muawiya, says:

Take my blood, O one with the sash, for I

Have seen with my own eyes in her fingers my blood.

And do not kill her if you manage to kill her;

Rather, inform her after my death of my mourning.

And he says, being the strong caliph:

I asked her for union; she said, 'Do not be deceived by us;

Whoever among us seeks union dies of sorrow.'

How many a slain one has died of love's longing,

From passion, without revealing it or returning.

So I said, 'I seek forgiveness from the Merciful for my slip;

Indeed, the lover is one of little patience and endurance.'

She left me prostrate while she said,

'Consider how the gazelle has acted with the lion.'

So there is no poetry specific to a king or a slave; rather, poetry is a reflection of an important aspect of human life that conveys to us his feelings and emotions; for what drives one to say poetry is love, which is an innate instinct in the human soul that God has inspired without distinction between great or small, or one of status and power and one without power. Even the blind is equal to the sighted in this instinct, and we have in Bashar an indication where he says of the one he loves:

My night was not long, but I did not sleep,

And the vision of pain has denied me sleep.

My soul, O servant, know from me

That I am, O servant, made of flesh and blood.

In my coldness is a frail body;

If you lean on it, it would collapse.

The seal of love is upon my neck,

The place of the seal among the people of covenants.

And if I say to her, 'Be generous to us,'

She would respond in silence, neither yes nor no.

And Ibn Zaydun refutes the saying of the poetry of kings with his poetry for Walida:

You have devalued me after you once valued me,

And you have lowered me, though you often elevated me.

You hastened to dismiss me from plans of approval,

And I have indeed offered sincere advice when you turned away from me.

Why, since you have ensnared me in the snare of love,

Did you not comfort me with union or console me?

Patience is sweet when you have made me drink it,

And fire is cool when you have set me ablaze.

You were my desire, yet you made me taste the bitterness of harm;

Oh, I wish I had never spoken of you, 'If only!'

It is an emotion in which all are equal without distinction or discrimination.