ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the poetry of Nusaib Ibn Rabbah, Suhaym, and Al-Haiqutan, three Shu’ubiyya Black poets from the Umayyad period (661–750). By studying Black Umayyad poets, the book integrates them into a canon that has generally excluded them. The term Shu’ubiyya derives from the Quran and literally means “nations” or “peoples.” It also specifies a resistance movement led by non-Arab Muslims against Arab dominance. These poets’ defence of blackness signals the emergence of Shu’ubiyya Black poets denouncing, in their own voices, the problematic heritage of slavery and racism. The chapter examines forms of canonical oppression on the basis of blackness. It looks at how these poets experienced a double marginalization as Blacks and poets and were disenfranchised from critical works on Arabic poetry. The chapter draws on Homi Bhabha's concepts of liminality and “Third space of enunciation” to describe Black poets’ position of marginality in the tradition of Arabic poetry, as outsiders in terms of their race and insiders in terms of their language. Finally, using Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia, this chapter characterizes Black Umayyad poetry as heterotopic since it operates on the margin of hegemonic spaces, as it affirms difference and functions as a means of escape from marginalization.
