The son of a Negro slave and an Arab father, he still managed to be the chief poet and hero of his tribe. .
One of the most significant characteristics in Arabic literature is description. Poets were ranked based on the extent to which they could describe the beauty of their surroundings. The greater the amount of description, the more beautiful the poetry was said to be. In pre-Islamic poetry, poets used "wasf" for animals, plants, and women. In the Qur"an, it is used to describe the Day of Judgment and heaven. .
In "Antara's Mu"allaqa, he refers to the beloved through similes using much description. "As if a draft of musk from a spiceman's pouch announced the wet gleam of her inner teeth," was written to describe his beloved's sweet kiss. He even goes to the extent of comparing her sweet mouth to "an untouched meadow, bloom and grass sheltered in rain, untrodden, dung-free, hidden." The description used makes the beloved come alive to the reader, or in the olden day's case, the listener. .
In Imru"ul-Qays's Mu"allaqa, he also describes the beloved in great detail. "Slim, fair-skinned, not flabby, her breast-bones polished like a burnished mirror" and "a throat like that of an antelope, not ugly when she shows it nor unadorned," utilize animals as well as his view of her to his naked eye to reveal his admiration for her beauty. One verse later, he moves on to plants, fruits specifically, saying, "and [with] dark hair that adorns her back, jet black, abundant, like the racemes of a date palm, with many stalks of fruit." This only shows the extent to which animals and plants are valued in the desert society.
In the Qur"an however, the horror of judgment day is emphasized through the used of description. The unbelievers "shall become like scattered moths and the mountains like tufts of carded wool." This description was apparently used to scare the unbelievers into believing. The end is near, and there will be justice for all.
