The poets of the Messenger Mohammad were three: Hassan Bin Thabet, Abdullah Bin Rawaha and Kaab Bin Melik. Those three were distinguished by the ability of eloquence in the Arabic language. They wrote private poems praising the Messenger Mohammad, fought the polytheists with their sharp tongues and opposed the infidels and repudiated them with poetry. The Messenger Mohammad said about the poets in the Qur’an, Surat al-Tawbah, for the Battle of Tabouk, verse 118:
‘And upon the three who remained behind: The poet Kaab Bin Melik, Hilal Bin Umayah and Murarah Bin al-Rabeh, until the vast Earth was too narrow for them, their souls were too tight for them and they thought that there was no refuge from god except to him, then he turned to them repentance, so that they would repent. Indeed, god is the one who repents the most merciful.’
Hassan Bin Thabet
He was Hassan Bin Thabet Bin al-Munzir al-Khazarji al-Ansari from the Khazarj tribe that migrated from Yemen to the Hijaz and settled in al-Madinah alongside the inhabitants of al-Awos.
Hassan was born in al-Madinah about eight years before the birth of the Messenger Mohammad. His lineage goes back to Banu Najjar, the uncles of Abdul Matlib Bin Hashem, the grandfather of Mohammad, from the Khazarj tribe. Before the Messenger Mohammad proclaimed Mohammadiah, the city of ‘Yathrib,’ later known as al-Madinah, was a place of conflict between the Awos and Khazarj, interspersed with many quarrels and wars. Quais Bin al-Khatim was the poet of al-Awos, and Hassan Bin Thabet was the poet of al-Khazarj. During those wars that took place between the two tribes, the poet Hassan’s reputation and his widespread fame in the peninsula shone with praise and satire for the ingenuity of his intellectual ability and the eloquence of his poetry. His poetry was characterized by exaggeration and exaltation and included great words of elegance. Especially when he used to go to the kings of the Ghassan dynasty in Damascus, praising them with his poetry and praises defending the Messenger Mohammad in all meetings and celebrations. This is what drew the Messenger’s attention to Hassan’s eloquence, ability and consideration of him as a well-versed poet.
Hassan reached the age of sixty and was the pinnacle of gift of poetic maturity. He joined the Messenger and (aslama) embraced his Mohammadiah faith after he was a pagan and started defending it, the messenger, slandering the people of unbelief and the enemies of Mohammadiah. A large number of poets who believed in Mohammadiah supported him; among them were the poets Abdullah Bin Rawahah and Kaab Bin Melik.
Mohammad loved Hassan, praised his poetry, sympathized for him and allowed him to be close to him and allocated a portion of the spoils and gifts for him. While Mohammad disagreed with Quraysh and fought them, Hassan was by intelligent, strategic psychology, not defaming Quraysh by disbelief or worship of idols, because he did not affect them in their standing, dignity and stature. Rather, he used to satirize them on the days in which they were defeated, because it affected them like a stabbing arrow, and reproached them with faults and lineages.
One of Hassan’s high principles was that he stood with humanity and left behind an honourable and immortal reputation in the history of the Arabs. He refused to carry the sword, despite his moral/intellectual vigour in fighting the Quraysh and the pagans, because it was a tool and a symbol of violence and death. He refused to participate in the invasions and murder and smeared his hands with the blood of a human being and suppressed his freedom. This was due to his awareness and his upbringing in a house of prestige, honour, love, inclination of his life to the spirit of poetry and the sobriety of thought.
But, when Hassan intended to spend his life writing Mohammad’s thoughts, his virility and harsh words changed. With Ziad Thabet, his poetry transformed from heresy into a religious style in his Qur’anic words, as if it was specially created for writing the Qur’an. In the Qur’an, Hassan and Ziad Thabet gave us and the world of thought a fine literary product that we are proud of and that increases the knowledge of every human creature who loves knowledge, poetry and the richness level of the Arabic language. Whoever loves poetry and literature and wants to increase his literary balance with a high level, they must study the Qur’an to increase the reservoir of their literary knowledge.
Moreover, Hassan was not responsible for the essence of the philosophy of the Mohammadiah faith and the imperfection and ambiguity that permeates it. Hassan was the poet-teacher and left shiny imprints of his intellectual ability in the row and presentation of the noble verses of the Qur’an. Without him, Ziad Thabet and finally Abu al-Asoud al-Du’ouli, there would be no Qur’an with a distinctive level of literature that deserves consideration and respect.
As for what makes us sad, it is that Hassan lost his sight at the end of his life when he got older. He did not deserve that; it is possible that he had a disease that affected his eyes so he could no longer see. In that era, eye disease was not as widely known as it is today.
To be continued
Excerpts from the book: “Is God a Lie or Are We? Certainly We are”
Author: Jamil Elias Kabalan
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