الغزل العذري: أدب نسوي في العصر الأمويPLATONIC LOVE POETRY: FEMINIST LITERATURE IN THE UMAYYAD ERA

Abstract

Readers of Platonic Love pieces, that were popular in the Umayyad era and spread in Arab society until almost a century after its demise, observe its uniqueness in terms of presenting the personalities of poets in a distinguished way as to men in that time in respect of cultural features. The stories also include extraordinary events that drive them away from the real framework, which critics used to believe, and puts them in an artistic framework that seeks to present a possible reality that is not achieved in actuality. Perhaps this is due to the reasons; one of the most important being the need of the Arab society to receive this kind of narration. This need goes back to the Free Arab woman who belongs to the middle class in society. This class, made up of the majority of the population of Hijaz cities in the Umayyad era and Iraqi cities such as Basra, Kufa and Baghdad at the beginning of the Abbasid era, formed the time of prevalence of this art. As to the delivery of this artistic message, it was done by narrators who have taken for themselves specific places such as bars, or people gathered in the evening near their homes, to present the stories of poets and their poems that were sung or chanted. The narrators have formulated or developed this news, they also added events in poems in order to meet the needs of women for this kind of art at that time, where women's gender identity contributed greatly, and indirectly to the formulation and dissemination of Platonic Love stories, regardless of its existence on a real basis or not. Interest in this art declined only with the change of material and cultural ways of life in the Abbasid society, cross-pollination of Arabs with non-Arabs, and the free exit of women from their social shell through methods invented by themselves; some being under the titles of maliciousness, deception, provocation and others. So other stories began to invade the Abbasid Arab society, such as the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, which replaced love stories in both of its genres. Other tales that are not closely related to women continued to be the news of heroes and their stories, such as the biography of Antara bin Shaddad, Al-Zeer Salem and other news of heroism and wars that served to emphasize masculinity and its authority in society at that time.