Jabal ibn Jawwal () was a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish poet who wrote in the

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

during the

7th century The 7th century is the period from 601 through 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. The spread of Islam and the Muslim conquests began with the unification of Arabia by the Islamic prophet Muhammad starting in 622 ...

. He was a contemporary of

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

. According to

ibn Hisham Abu Muhammad Abd al-Malik ibn Hisham ibn Ayyub al-Himyari (; died 7 May 833), known simply as Ibn Hisham, was a 9th-century Abbasid historian and scholar. He grew up in Basra, in modern-day Iraq and later moved to Egypt. Life Ibn Hisham has ...

(''Kitab Sirat Rasul Allah,'' ed. Wüstenfeld, pp. 690, 713) and

Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Iṣfahānī (), also known as Abul-Faraj, (full form: Abū al-Faraj ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥaytham al-Umawī al-Iṣfahānī) (897–967Common Era, CE / 284–356Islamic calendar, AH) w ...

("Kitab al-Aghani," viii. 104), Jabal was a Tha'alabite (Abu al-Faraj gives the whole genealogy), but neither of them mentions the fact that he was a Jew. Ibn Hajar, however, in his biographical dictionary "Kitab al-Ashabah fi Tamyiz al-Shahabah" (ed. Sprenger, i. 453), relying on

ibn al-Kalbi Hishām ibn al-Kalbī (), 737 – 819 CE / 204 AH, also known as Ibn al-Kalbi (), was an Arab historian. His full name was Abu al-Mundhir Hisham ibn Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib ibn Bishr al-Kalbi. Born in Kufa, he spent much of his life in Baghdad. L ...

and on al-Marzabani, declares that such was the case and that Jabal subsequently embraced

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

Yaqut Yakut of Yaqut (), sometimes transliterated Yāḳūt or Yācūt, is the Arabic word for ruby. As a personal name, it may refer to: Given name * Yakut Khan (before 1672-1733), Indian general who invaded Bombay in 1689 * Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179-122 ...

("Mu'jam," i. 765), quoting a verse of Jabal, calls him erroneously "Jamal ibn Jawwal al-Taghlabi." Jabal is sporadically cited by the above-mentioned Arabic authors. Abu al-Faraj (l.c. p. 101) quotes two verses of Jabal's, apparently from a poem which he addressed to al-Shammakh, himself a Tha'alabite poet, in reference to a quarrel that arose between them. This is probably the same incident as that related by Abu al-Faraj (l.c. p. 104); namely, that al-Shammakh fell in love with Jabal's sister Kalbah, and when, shortly afterward, al-Shammakh went on a journey she married his brother, giving rise to a poetical contest between the disappointed lover and Jabal. Eleven other verses by Jabal, indicating sufficiently the poet's Jewish religion, are quoted by ibn Hisham (l.c. p. 713). They are an elegy on the death of

Huyayy ibn Akhtab Huyayy ibn Akhtab (; ) was a chief of the Banu Nadir, a Jewish tribe of Medina in pre-Islamic Arabia. Biography Family His ancestry was Huyayy ibn Akhtab ibn Sa‘yah ibn Tha‘labah ibn ‘Ubayd ibn Ka‘b ibn al-Khazraj ibn Abi Habib ibn al-Nad ...

(according to Sprenger's punctuation in ibn Hajar, l.c., "Jubayy"), chief of the

Banu al-Nadir The Banu Nadir (, ) were a Jewish Arab tribe that lived in northern Arabia at the oasis of Medina until the 7th century. They were probably a part of the Constitution of Medina, which was formed after Muhammad's Hijrah. Tensions rose between the ...

, and on the defeat by Muhammad of this tribe and of the

Banu Qurayza The Banu Qurayza (; alternate spellings include Quraiza, Qurayzah, Quraytha, and the archaic Koreiza) were a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib (now known as Medina). They were one of the three major Jewish ...

. These verses were a reply to the poet

Hassan ibn Thabit Hassan ibn Thabit () (born c. 563, Medina died 674) was an Arabian poet and one of the companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who was best known for poems in defense of the prophet. He was born in Medina, and was a member of the Banu Khazr ...

. They apparently do not form a complete poem; for ibn Hajar (l.c.) quotes a verse of Jabal's not appearing in the quotation of Ibn Hisham, but having the same meter and the same rhyme, and therefore probably from the same poem.

Resources

Gottheil, Richard and M. Seligsohn. "Jabal ibn Jawwal".
''

Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on the ...

''. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jabal Ibn Jawwal Jewish poets 7th-century Arabic-language poets

See also

Resources

References