Black poet boasts of his skin color:
⚔️
A raven-black scabbard does you no harm
when there’s a bone-slicing steel sword within.
—Abū Isḥāq Ibrahīm al-Kānimī (Andalus and Marrakech, d. 1212)
⚔️
A raven-black scabbard does you no harm
when there’s a bone-slicing steel sword within.
—Abū Isḥāq Ibrahīm al-Kānimī (Andalus and Marrakech, d. 1212)
I didn't translate the first line because it has a difficult tribal image. Al-Kānimī was originally from present-day Chad, but also claimed descent originally from Dhakwān, a Hijazi Arabian tribe.
The line means, "if the non-Arabs have dressed me in their garb (=I'm dark-skinned), yet Muḍar (ancestor of the the northern Arabs) connects me to [the Arab] Dhakwān tribe."
He studied grammar in Marrakech and composed poetry for several patrons in Andalus.
Farrūkh, Taʾrīkh al-adab al-ʿArabī, 5:587 and al-Wāfī bi-l-wafiyāt 6:171
Farrūkh, Taʾrīkh al-adab al-ʿArabī, 5:587 and al-Wāfī bi-l-wafiyāt 6:171
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