Bashshar Ibn Burd: Poems (d783)
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Taken from: The Giraffe in History and Art by BERTHOLD LAUFER
(One of the earliest Persian text to mention the giraffe)
Bashshar Ibn Burd, the blind, deformed poet of the late Omayyad and early Abbassid period, who died in A.D. 783. In a satire on the early Mutagilite Wasil Ibn Ata, named Abu Hudhaifa,
nicknamed al-Ghazzal, the weaver (because he frequented the weavers to observe the chastity of their women) , when the latter made a derogatory exclamation about the poet's neck, he
says:
Why should I be bothered by a weaver, who,
if he turns his back, has a neck
Like an ostrich of the desert; and if he faces you,
The neck of the giraffe? What have I to do with you?
Taken from: From Siraf to Sumatra: Seafaring and Spices in the Islamicate Indo-Pacific, Ninth-Eleventh Centuries C.E. by Averbuch, Bryan Douglas, (who translated the quote from: Kitab al
Aghani 3:193.
(his description of a white slave girl)
A hidden pearl of the sea,
Amidst the (other) pearls, the merchant chose her...
(his description of a black slave girl)
A shiny black girl...
As if molded for him who acquired her,
In ambergris kneaded with musk...
Taken from: Der Neger in der Bildersprache der arabischen Dichter By Manfred Ullmann
(cited in : Ibn al Mu’tazz (d908) Iraq)
The wine-skin has a certain resemblance to a Zanj-man, but the wine-skin is more fragrant and delicate.
(cited in: Al-Raghib al-Isfahani: Muhadarat al-'Udaba (d1109) )
... and it is as if the wine-skin is a Zanj, who has stolen (= his hands and feet have been cut off because of stealing)
from a different ms: a wine-skin.
Taken from: Africanism; Blacks in the Medieval Arab Imaginary by Nader Kadhem 2023.
Bashar bin Burd, who flirts with a black woman saying:
“And a black ghada (1) as bright as water,
in sweetness and softness, as if it was created,
for those lucky, from amber mixed with musk.”
Then, the same poet describes blacks thusly:
If the zinji’s stomach is full, he insults his god
And against me, he arouses al-Zanj and Nubians
He steals whatever comes in his way,
He is too tarub, (2) do you know a non-tarub zinji?!
(1) Ghada is a young beautiful delicate woman.
(2) Derived from “Tarab”; tarub refers to an exuberant person who is quickly and ecstatically engaged with music/singing/dancing. This is considered a distasteful feature and is often attributed to blacks.