Abu 'l-Sha'tha' al-Ajdaji

Abu 'l-Sha'tha' 'Abd Allah b. Ru'ba al-Ajdaji was a poet of the Tamim tribe who lived mainly in Basra. He wrote almost exclusively in the rajaz metre, and his son Ru'ba was also a poet.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) says he was probably born in the caliphate of 'Uthman (23–35/644–656) and died in 97 (about 715). Little is known of his life, except that he had to joust with his Kufan rival Abu 'l-Nadim al-'Idli. His poetry is marked by the constant and exclusive use of the rajaz metre, a very rich vocabulary, and a laborious construction. His urjuzas, which can run to 229 lines, follow the model of the pre-Islamic qasida: a nasib, descriptions of the desert and its animals, and a panegyric of a man, of himself or of his tribe. He praised eminent men such as Yazid b. Mu'awiya, 'Abd al-'Aziz b. Marwan, Bishr b. Marwan, Sulayman b. 'Abd al-Malik, al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf, 'Umar b. 'Ubayd Allah b. Ma'mar and Mus'ab b. al-Zubayr. He never cultivated satire or elegy. The critics praise his verbal richness, though they note an excessive use of alliteration. ¹