al-Afwah al-Awdi

Abd Rabi'a Salama b. 'Amr, known as al-Afwah al-Awdi, was a pre-Islamic poet and chieftain of the Awd clan of Madhhij, about the middle of the 6th century. His poetry praises the warlike virtues of his tribe.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), signed Ch. Pellat, describes him as a pre-Islamic Arab poet and chieftain of the Awd clan of Madhhij about the middle of the 6th century. Most of his extant poetry celebrates the warlike virtues of his tribe and its chief, while his gnomic poems caused him to be counted among the sages of the jahiliyya. Al-Jahiz, however (al-Hayawan, vi, 280), doubted the authenticity of the poems attributed to him, and his arguments are to the point. His diwan was published in al-Taraif al-adabiyya (Cairo 1937), and verses and notes on him appear in the classical anthologies and biographical works. ¹