The Impact of Iranian Poets on the Development of Arabic Poetry

In the early days of Islam, Arabic poetry was not different from the poetry of the Pre-Islamic Era with respect to language, thought and imagination. These poems contained all the same characteristics and primitive crudeness that are more or less found in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. This kind of poetry continued up to the end of the first century A.H. During that period, Arabs used to compose poems in Arabic and non-Arabs did not make any attempts to interfere. However, from the beginning of the second century A.H. that is the end of the Umayyad Era and the beginning of the Abbasid Era, the influence of non-Arab civilizations and communities became effective and influential. It is said that Muslims had social contacts and proximity with non-Arabs for nearly one century; therefore, from the beginning of the second century A.H. non-Arab Muslims started to engage themselves in those affairs which led to the defeat of their Arab predecessors in this field. The most important factor that bestowed the Islamic civilization progress and perfection was the Persian element with which the coming of the Abbasid to power, deeply influenced the pace of the Islamic civilization including Arabic literature. The effect of this influence is as apparent in poetry as it is in prose. This paper studies Iranian poets who composed Arabic poems.