The pre-Islamic artistic traditions and the Islamic content in the poetry of Sadr Al-Islam

It has become ingrained in the consciousness of the seasoned poet in the early Islamic era that the artistic traditions he was raised on in the pre-Islamic period serve as a standard for artistic quality. Therefore, it became very difficult for him to abandon these traditions after converting to Islam and addressing new topics that did not exist in the pre-Islamic era. For this reason, he had to employ these traditions to express these topics. In this study, we attempt to clarify how this employment is reflected in two of the most famous poems of early Islamic poetry: the poem "Afat Dhāt al-Asāf" by Hassan ibn Thabit, and the poem "Bānat Suʿād" by Ka'b ibn Zuhayr. Before the study, we presented an introduction in which we discussed two points: the first concerns the relationship between artistic traditions and standards of artistic quality, and the second concerns artistic traditions between rigidity and flexibility. The first chapter clarifies the stance of researchers regarding the employment of artistic traditions in Islamic poetry and in the two mentioned poems. Then, in the second chapter, we examined how artistic traditions are employed in expressing the Islamic content in the poem "Afat Dhāt al-Asāf." In the third chapter, we addressed some observations regarding the poem "Bānat Suʿād," and in the fourth chapter, we explained how artistic traditions are employed in expressing the Islamic content in this poem. Throughout this study, we were keen to follow different viewpoints, discuss them, and rely on primary sources both old and new.