The Relationship between Qaṣīda as a Poetic Form and the Age of Jāhilīyyah

In their encounter with a literary phenomenon, scholars of literary history consider the literariness of such a phenomenon to have an independent and trans-historical value. Scholars have regarded the present set of circumstances of the literary phenomenon as their starting point. Under such set of circumstances, the text can present scholars with what history has desired to prove in the first place. In its passing through a social, political and historical path, and before attaining its present position, the literary phenomenon has positioned itself towards attaining a textual evolution. The historical path of a literary phenomenon covers concepts such as unity with life and structural independence. Jāhili Qasida is a poetic form that is in unity with life forces of its time, and every part of its structure reflects an aspect of the age of Jāhiliyyat. Such reflection also attests to the interconstruction of the art, thought and life in Jāhillīyah. Through the utilization of its structuralist framework, the present research studies the beginning of the age of Jāhilīyah. Such an investigation can help the research reach a hermeneutic understanding of the age as well. The research explains that the literariness of Jāhili Qasida emerges from the relationship between Qasida as a poetic form and the historical inklings of the age of Jahilliyat. After the emergence of Islam, Qasida loses its original Jahili contours and becomes a key poetic in classical literatures written in Arabic and Persian.