Sharaf al-Din ibn Hubayra, His Life and Poetry

Abstract

Undoubtedly, there are many studies that have focused on the lives and poetry of famous poets. The majority of these studies have focused on the poetry of well-known poets. This does not indicate a weakness in these studies or their repetition, but rather the artistic characteristics, depth, and mystery of their poetry, and the variations in their collections would not have been revealed without those studies. However, this has resulted in neglecting other poets, or so-called obscure poets, not because of their lack of imagination or artistic talent, but because their poetry was less due to their political and personal circumstances. The poet we are studying is Sharaf al-Din bin al-Wazir Yahya bin Hubayra, who worked as a military commander and deputy in the ministry for his father. His circumstances prevented him from writing much poetry, but he would recite poetry when he read a poem that he admired, and he would compose a poem inspired by it, adding new meanings that the previous poet did not mention. His poetry was admired by the famous poet and literary writer Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, who mentioned him in his book "Kharidat al-Qasr" and "Jaridat al-Asr," which recorded the news of famous personalities of his time, such as caliphs, ministers, poets, writers, and celebrities. The news of the poet Sharaf al-Din is scattered in historical books, biographical sources, and media, and we do not know of a recent study that has collected his news and studied his poetry. However, there are two studies that have dealt with his father, the minister Yahya bin Hubayra: a doctoral thesis titled "The Minister Ibn Hubayra and his Jurisprudential Choices (A Comparative Study)," by Dr. Abd Sami Abd Muhammad al-Khalidi, and another study titled "The Delights of the Minister Ibn Hubayra al-Hanbali," by the author Sulaiman bin Saleh al-Kharashi. Both studies dealt with jurisprudential aspects. Therefore, we have conducted this research to study his life and poetry in an introduction and two chapters. The introduction briefly discusses the political life in the sixth century AH, as the poet was influenced by the political situation of his time. The first chapter discusses the poet's life, including his captivity, imprisonment, and death, and mentions news about his father and brother, as they worked together in serving the country during the reign of al-Muqtafi and his son al-Mustanjid. The second chapter discusses his poetry and includes poetic oppositions, and we analyzed a poem as a model for the study.