Arabic Poetry

Extension to Classical Arabic Poetry

Arabic has 8 feet (called جزء pl. أجزاء). Below is a table that explains them all.

The first column shows how the syllables in each foot come together. These feet have English names, but they are too complex and irrelevant to mention here.

The second column gives the actual foot. In this column, the thing we want to watch for is the pattern of vowelled and non-vowelled letters. Whether there is a long vowel, which letters we use, or which vowel we use are of no significance.

For this reason, the third column summarizes the feet by giving them a code. The “0” in the code means the consonant is not vowelled (ساكنة) and a “1” means it is (متحركة). And this is what we’re interested in. Remember, the long vowels الف, واو, and ياء are considered non-vowelled (ساكنة).

Name	Foot	Code Read the code from right to left
short-long-short	فَعُولُنْ	01011
long-short-short	فَاعِلُنْ	01101
short-short-short-short	مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ	0110101
short-long-long-short	مَفاعِيلُنْ	0101011
short-long-long-short	مَفْعُولاَتُ	0110111
long-short-long-short	فَاعِلاَتُنْ	0101101
short-long-short-short-short	مُفَاعَلَتُنْ	0111011
short-short-long-short-short	مُتَفَاعِلُنْ	0110111

Exercise: write the code of the following lines of poetry below them and see if you can identify the feet above. (this example is from the معلقة of امر القيس)

بِسِقْـطِ اللِّـوى بَيْـنَ الدَّخـولِ فَحَـوْمَـلِ	قِـفا نَـبْكِ مِنْ ذِكْرى حَـبيبٍ وَمَـنْـزِلِ
لِـما نَسَـجَتْـها مِـنْ جَنـوبٍ وَشَـمْـأَلِ	فَتـوضِحَ فَالْـمِقْـراةِ لَمْ يَعْـفُ رَسْـمُها