Al-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq ( ar, ٱلرَّبِيع ٱبْن أَبِي ٱلْحُقَيْق, ') was a
Jewish poet of the
Banu al-Nadir
The Banu Nadir ( ar, بَنُو ٱلنَّضِير, he, בני נצ'יר) were a Jewish Arab tribe which lived in northern Arabia at the oasis of Medina until the 7th century. The tribe refused to convert to Islam as Muhammad had ordered it to d ...
in
Medina, who flourished shortly before the
Hijra (622 CE).
His family was in possession of the fort
Qamus Qamus (القموص) was one of the fortresses of the Jewish poet Al-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq, and his Jewish tribe called Banu Nadir. The fortress was situated near Khaybar in what is now Saudi Arabia. The fortress was attacked by Muslim forces and ...
, situated near
Khaybar. Like most of the Medina Jews, he took part in the quarrels between the two Arab tribes of that town, and was present at the
battle of Bu'ath, 617, which took place in the territory of the
Banu Qurayza.
Al-Rabi was a poet of note. He had a contest at capping verses with the famous Arabic poet,
al-Nabighah, the latter reciting one
hemistich, while Al-Rabi had to supply the next, keeping to the same meter and finding a
rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
. He has been credited with the authorship of other poems, but upon dubious authority. One of these poems used to be recited by Abun, the son of the
Caliph Uthman. From its contents, however (it criticizes the folly of his own people), it seems more likely to have been written by one of Abun's sons, who bore the same name as Al-Rabi. It might, then, have been composed after the submission of the Banu Qurayza.
Al-Rabi's three sons (Al-Rabi ibn al-Rabi,
Kinana ibn al-Rabi and Sallam ibn al-Rabi) were among
Muhammad's most bitter opponents. An account of Al-Rabi can be found in vol. xxi. of the ''Kitab al-Aghani,'' ed. Brünnow, p. 91. He is cited among the Arabic Jewish poets by
Moses ibn Ezra
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ ("writer of penitential prayers") ( ar, أَبُو هَارُون مُوسَى بِن يَعْقُوب اِبْن عَزْرَا, ''Abu Harun Musa bin Ya'qub ibn 'Azra'', he, מֹשֶׁה ב ...
in his ''Kitab al-Muhadharah'' (''Rev. Ét. Juives,'' xxi.102).
See also
*
Non-Muslim interactants with Muslims during Muhammad's era
References
*
Hartwig Hirschfeld and
Richard GottheilAl-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq ''
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 th ...
''. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906; citing:
**Nöldeke, ''Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alten Araber,'' pp. 72 et seq.;
**Hirschfeld, in ''Rev. Ét. Juives,'' vii. 152, 299.H. Hir. G.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Al-Rabi Ibn Abu Al-Huqayq
Arabic-language poets
Banu Nadir
Jewish poets
7th-century Arabian Jews
7th-century Arabic poets
Pre-Islamic Arabian poets