Ways of the Intellect: Forms of Discourseand Rationalization Processes in the Arabic-Islamic Context*

Prior to Qur'anic revelation the Arabic language played an important role, which must not be reduced to its communicative function, but, rather, has a basic cultural, social, and even political value. The central significance of pre-Islamic poetry and the social fame enjoyed by the old poets are witness to this fact and reinforce the assumption that Arab culture during this era was a culture of the word. Here, the word was not yet consolidated or committed by writing since the oral tradition was strongly present. The art of poetry served as a form of discourse here and rhetoric was a necessary development. The imagery and figurative representation in the language were characteristic in order to express conditions of life, relationships, and even f eelings and ideas. Also characteristic of this discourse were the expressive, descriptive and preaching functions and genres that were more dominant than the analytic function and structure. The themes of Arabic poetry in the pre-Islamic era can illuminate the attributes of the discourse and reveal the world-view of the people. In this context, it must be noted that the authenticity of collections of pre-Islamic poetry is controversial among some particularly modern, critical Arab historians of literature. The Egyptian literature scientist, Taha Hussein (1889–1973), approached this theme in his “fi-aŠ-Šir al-ğāhili” (‘On Pre-Islamic Poetry’) in 1927 ¹ in a critical and analytic manner and thus sparked a polarizing polemic. His critique of the alleged authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry and the assumption that it might be of a later date was interpreted as indirect doubt about the authenticity of the Qur'anic corpus, which could relativize religious dogma with regard to the Qur'an.

It is known that the written collection of pre-Islamic poetry was carried out at the time of the Umayyad Caliphate, i.e. 200 to 300 years after the poetry came into being. Until this time of written consolidation, the poems were orally transmitted. Important in our context are the structural attributes of the values and the world-view that can be gleaned from these collections of poetry.² There is a consensus among researchers and historians of literature that pre-Islamic poetry delivers an important insights into various conditions of life in the Arabian peninsula before Islamic revelation. It shows the emotions, the values, and the various experiences that were of importance not so much for the poet as for his tribe. The poet was like a scribe or a documentary archive for his tribe and keeper of a collective memory. Through his poetry he establishes the most important events from his subjective point of view, events that are intrinsically important, but also significant for his tribe: the wars, the victories and the losses, the enthusiasm and the disappointment, the dead and Death, love and hate. The genres of pre-Islamic poetry and their themes, which deliver their stylistic determinations, also reveal the environment of the poets of yore, their social structures and the various dominant views and values. The genres are the following: