Kab Ibn Zuhayr

Date of birth unknown; died 662. Arab poet. Kab ibn Zuhayr belonged to a nomadic Arabian tribe, the Ghatafan, and was the son of the famous pre-Islamic poet Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma. At first he wrote mocking verses about the prophet Muhammad but later dedicated to him the verbose and bombastic qasida (ode) “Suad has left me ….” According to legend, Muhammad made the poet a gift of his cloak for this, whereupon the qasida came to be called the “Qasida of the Cloak”; it became Kab ibn Zuhayr’s most famous work, inspiring many commentaries.