ABSTRACT
Arabic poetry was born and flourished before the coming of Islam, during Late Antiquity, a period of empires and monotheistic religions on the rise. Yet early Arab poets have traditionally been seen as having little awareness of the wider world, expressing the values and worldview of a nomadic, tribal society embroiled in local feuds. This article explores the early Arab poets’ relationship with the wider Late Antique world through one of the master poems by Imruʾ al-Qays, the most celebrated pre-Islamic poet. I will argue that this poem, known as rāʾiyya, is fully embedded in Late Antiquity but indifferent to its fundamental aspect—religion—and as such it has the potential to nuance our understanding of Late Antiquity in the Arabian context and beyond.
