Rachel Hajar's Blog: My Life in Doha - Posts Tagged "dove"
Love symbolism in Arab poetry
I am not an expert or authority on Arab literature and poetry but I enjoy listening to my husband’s quotes and translations of the poetry of the great Arab poets. I particularly like the ancient Arab poets.
“Did you know that the bird, especially the wild pigeon occupies a special status in Arab love poetry?” he asked me one day.
“Well, the dove with an olive branch in its beak is accepted worldwide as a symbol of peace”, I replied. “I never heard of it as a symbol of love.”
“In Arab love poetry”, my husband continued, “ancient Arab poets attributed great emotions to the wild pigeon. In their love poems, the pigeon figured prominently, such that they would complain to the pigeon how much they miss their loved one, asking the bird to carry love messages to the beloved. To the Arab poets the songs of the pigeon were sad songs, interpreting its singing as cries for its loved one.”
That certainly was very interesting. I knew of course that people kept lovebirds as pets but the birds belong to the parrot family. I was not aware of pigeons being associated with love. Pigeons nest on rooftops and can be found aplenty in the old squares of Europe, flying about and alighting on tourists. In Qatar, there are many pigeons roosting on rooftops. In some Arab countries, particularly Egypt, pigeons are considered a delicacy!
My husband told me of Abu Faras Al-Hamadani, an ancient warrior-prince poet who lived in Syria in 932-976 AD. He was captured by the Romans and kept in prison for seven years in Constantinople for the purpose of prisoner exchange with a Roman prince who was a prisoner in Aleppo. Abu Faras wrote some of his best poems while in the Roman jail. One such poem was inspired by a pigeon singing near his cell. He wrote (my husband’s translation):
I said to a crying pigeon nearby
O’ my neighbor
Do you know the feelings of this guy?
But you have not experienced such separation
With its misery and frustration.
Days are not fair,
Come, let us share
This sadness we both bare.
My eye has more right to cry
Than your eye,
But my tears in this town,
Are too proud to come down.
According to my husband, the Arab poet considered his own heart like a pigeon hiding in his chest. There are verses describing how the poets’ heart rate increased when he thought of his loved one. The fast heart rate was usually described as “a pigeon flying and fluttering its wings” in his chest. Another poet, Arwah ibn Hozam (d.650AD) in his poem for his beloved Afra, said that due to his intense love, his racing heart felt like “a pigeon’s wings hung over his liver.” My husband explained that the poet meant that the bird’s wings were caught over his liver and the bird was trying to free its wings by flapping them very fast. The poet mentioned the liver not because he did not know his anatomy, but because the Arabs at that time considered both the heart and the liver as centers for love and emotions. The legendary Arab poet Al Majnoon (see my post Lovesick in the desert) wrote that the night his love Lila was taken away from his town: “My heart feels like a bird trying to fly while its wings are caught in a net.”
My husband explained that the Arab poets chose the pigeon as metaphor for love and its loss because the pigeon’s size is similar to the size of the heart, and so they thought it could be housed in the chest. The wild dove or pigeon’s song, unlike that of the domesticated pigeon, had a sad effect that inspired the poets. The pigeon is considered a peaceful bird from the dawn of history: the Arabs before Islam, the Muslims, Jews, and Christians. In the Biblical story of Noah’s Arc and the Flood Myth, Noah sent out a dove to bring him the good news – that the waters have subsided. The dove returned with a fresh olive twig in her beak, indicating that the flood was retreating. Therefore, the pigeon and the olive twig are considered symbols for peace until today.
Rachel Hajar, M.D.
My Life In Doha: Between Dream and Reality
http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.c...
www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
Available in all bookstores
“Did you know that the bird, especially the wild pigeon occupies a special status in Arab love poetry?” he asked me one day.
“Well, the dove with an olive branch in its beak is accepted worldwide as a symbol of peace”, I replied. “I never heard of it as a symbol of love.”
“In Arab love poetry”, my husband continued, “ancient Arab poets attributed great emotions to the wild pigeon. In their love poems, the pigeon figured prominently, such that they would complain to the pigeon how much they miss their loved one, asking the bird to carry love messages to the beloved. To the Arab poets the songs of the pigeon were sad songs, interpreting its singing as cries for its loved one.”
That certainly was very interesting. I knew of course that people kept lovebirds as pets but the birds belong to the parrot family. I was not aware of pigeons being associated with love. Pigeons nest on rooftops and can be found aplenty in the old squares of Europe, flying about and alighting on tourists. In Qatar, there are many pigeons roosting on rooftops. In some Arab countries, particularly Egypt, pigeons are considered a delicacy!
My husband told me of Abu Faras Al-Hamadani, an ancient warrior-prince poet who lived in Syria in 932-976 AD. He was captured by the Romans and kept in prison for seven years in Constantinople for the purpose of prisoner exchange with a Roman prince who was a prisoner in Aleppo. Abu Faras wrote some of his best poems while in the Roman jail. One such poem was inspired by a pigeon singing near his cell. He wrote (my husband’s translation):
I said to a crying pigeon nearby
O’ my neighbor
Do you know the feelings of this guy?
But you have not experienced such separation
With its misery and frustration.
Days are not fair,
Come, let us share
This sadness we both bare.
My eye has more right to cry
Than your eye,
But my tears in this town,
Are too proud to come down.
According to my husband, the Arab poet considered his own heart like a pigeon hiding in his chest. There are verses describing how the poets’ heart rate increased when he thought of his loved one. The fast heart rate was usually described as “a pigeon flying and fluttering its wings” in his chest. Another poet, Arwah ibn Hozam (d.650AD) in his poem for his beloved Afra, said that due to his intense love, his racing heart felt like “a pigeon’s wings hung over his liver.” My husband explained that the poet meant that the bird’s wings were caught over his liver and the bird was trying to free its wings by flapping them very fast. The poet mentioned the liver not because he did not know his anatomy, but because the Arabs at that time considered both the heart and the liver as centers for love and emotions. The legendary Arab poet Al Majnoon (see my post Lovesick in the desert) wrote that the night his love Lila was taken away from his town: “My heart feels like a bird trying to fly while its wings are caught in a net.”
My husband explained that the Arab poets chose the pigeon as metaphor for love and its loss because the pigeon’s size is similar to the size of the heart, and so they thought it could be housed in the chest. The wild dove or pigeon’s song, unlike that of the domesticated pigeon, had a sad effect that inspired the poets. The pigeon is considered a peaceful bird from the dawn of history: the Arabs before Islam, the Muslims, Jews, and Christians. In the Biblical story of Noah’s Arc and the Flood Myth, Noah sent out a dove to bring him the good news – that the waters have subsided. The dove returned with a fresh olive twig in her beak, indicating that the flood was retreating. Therefore, the pigeon and the olive twig are considered symbols for peace until today.
Rachel Hajar, M.D.
My Life In Doha: Between Dream and Reality
http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.c...
www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
Available in all bookstores
