ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the simile within the first section of the qaṣidah, the nasib, or remembrance of the beloved, with special attention to that section of the nasib conventionally called the description of the beloved. In the qaṣidah, the ghul is a female subspecies of the jinni that would bewilder the desert traveler or the would-be lover through constant change of form, thus becoming known as dhatu alwanin or dhu lawnayni: "she-with-many-guises" or "the double-guised." The sexual overtones of the first verse cited from Ṭarafah are underscored when the poem turns to the beloved's mouth, one of the more explicitly erotic images within the qaṣidah tradition. The crucial problem lies in the interpretation of the difference between the typical simile of the early qaṣidah and the analogical simile favored by Jacobi. For Jacobi, the qaṣidah similes remain at the level of reproduction.
