Literary References to Kumayt's Ode

1. Kumayt was a committed poet and a follower of Shia Imams who lived during Bani Umayyad reign. He was a skillful poet and orator, and knew the Holy Quran by heart. He was a famous scientist and an intellectual person before being a political character. He was the first poet who introduced reasoning and argument into poetry, but he was more famous for being a literary figure and a learned artist. He was accused of plagiarising Quran but the Quranic verse was mixed with his thoughts and words. Kumayt’s literary personality has not been introduced as it should have been, especially, as a long term political activist because of jealousy or personal grudges against him; on the contrary, he was accused of political bias and prejudice. His enemies did not admit his poetic skill; they would only call him an orator and would not consider his last poems (known as Hashemiyat) to be worth reading and alluding to in literary texts. His poems dealt with politics and religious conviction. Fear of publishing political and religious thoughts made his enemies destroy his poetic works in that time. For this reason and other factors, a large part of Kumayt’s poems has been missing including parts of his Hashemiyat.
2. The method used in this study is based on descriptive and library resources. First, the poet's poem (ode “Baeeya”) has been studied. Then, there is a reference to various readings and literary interpretations of the poem; besides, their allusions to or citations from this ode are collected and analyzed. In addition to collecting the missing lines of this ode, statistical methods are also deployed.
3. Given the importance of this ode, there is an attempt to show how others in their literary texts have alluded to this ode. Are these allusions only in terms of mere borrowing some lines or words from the ode or do they imitate it for its rhetoric and syntax? These quetsions and other similar ones have been our concern. The symbols in this ode known in the fields other than literature are also considered as helpful to this study’s main objective. Given that this ode is the longest ode of Hashemiyat, the question then remains to ask is this: are the lines of this ode more than the number of lines that researchers have proposed in their studies? The hypothesis is that many writers have emphasized this ode’s literary status and it has been cited in various fields of literature. It contains several symbols and has a great scope in the fields of literature, sociology, and religion.
4.Conclusion and Suggestions: The results of this study can be summarized as following. Kumayt has a famous ode named “Baeeya” (the last letter of the rhyme ends with the letter “B,”; hence, it is called “Baeeya”), which seems to be composed of more than 137 or 140 lines, the number that some researchers have reached, too. This ode has been the first poem in Kumayt’s Hashemiyat, and compared to his other odes, it has the greatest number of lines. It also has the highest number of literary allusions or citations. In terms of argumentation and reasoning inspired by the author’s delving into the Holy Quran, this ode is the most important and the most complete.
This ode, of all Kumat’s odes, also contains the highest Quranic themes and has been cited by the past and present theologians and interpreters to help explain Quranic verses. It has been cited 35 times by the interpreters for its lexical, grammatical, and phonological purposes. Some of Shia leaders such as Sheikh Mufid emphasized the ode’s validity and reliability for the interpretation of the Quranic verses. Shia and Sunni commentators like Tabari, Thalabi, Tusi, Tabarsi, Zamakhshari, Al-Qurtubi, Alusi, Abu Hayyan, and others have also refered to this poem.
Fifty lines of this ode contain more than 60 literary citations, with some lines including up to seven citations. In the field of syntactics, about 15 of these lines were cited but in terms of rhetoric, literary citations have been scarce and are merely limited to three areas, "metonymy"," eloquent simile", and "metaphor". Another important point is that he is famous for his rhetoric among philologists to the extent that references to the semantics in this ode has been the highest and the number of references cited only in this ode reaches 30 times.
This ode from the perspective of history or theology has also been examplary. Some literary parables of the ode are mentioned in some classiccal sources. As an example, one can refer to its use in the field of Qra’at (recitation of the Quran), and more specifically, its important role in the different forms of reciting the word "hamim".
We may also refer to the Islamic and cultural features of this ode which signal Kumayt’s Shia belief, for which he and his people have been blessed. More importantly, and thanks to this ode, Kumayt has received the divine Mercy and Forgiveness of Allah.
Kumayt did not accept the false pre-Islamic Arab traditons in poetry. His Hashemiyat, including the putative ode, can be considered as a symbol of liberation from the mere lyricism in poetry. The most beautiful expressions of knowledge of the Quran are shown in this ode which is an aspect of his intellectual maturity. In fine, he should be identified by and with his poetry. His poems bespeak of his great knowledge.