ZUHAIR [Zuhair

See also:

• IBN

ibn Abi Sulma Rabi' a ul-Muzani] (6th

See also:

• CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

century)  , one of the six great Arabian pre-Islamic poets . Of his life practically nothing is known save that he belonged tt a family of poetic power; his stepfather, Aus ibn Hajar, his sister, Khansa, and his son, Ka'b ibn Zuhair, were all poets of eminence . He is said to have lived long, and at the age of one hundred to have met Mahomet . His home was in the land of the Bani Ghatafan . His poems are characterized by their peaceful nature and a sententious moralizing . One of them is contained in the Moallakdt . As a whole his poems have been published by W . Ahlwardt in his The Diwans of the six Ancient Arabic Poets (London, 1870) ; and with the commentary of al-A'lam (died Io83) by Count Landberg in the second part of his Primeurs arabes (Leiden, 1889) . Some supplementary poems are contained in K . Dyroff's Zur Geschichte der Uberlieferung des Zuhairdiwans (Munich, 1892) . (G . W .