Ka'b ibn Zuhayr

ProfileKa'b ibn Zuhayr

Ka'b (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma, of the Banu Muzaynah, a tribe of the countryside between Makkah and Madinah. His father was one of the great poets of the age before Islam, whose ode is counted among the celebrated odes of that age known as the Mu'allaqat. According to the early biographies, Zuhayr died before the Prophet ﷺ was sent, and Ka'b took his place among the poets, and so inherited his name and wealth.

According to the early biographies, the poets of the Arabs were the voice of their tribes, and many of them turned their gifts against the Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims, since Islam took away their standing and the festivals of the old religion. According to the early biographies, Ka'b was one of them. According to the early biographies, Bujayr went to hear the Prophet ﷺ and accepted Islam, and stayed with him. Ka'b was angry, and sent him verses, asking who had led him from the religion of his father and mother and brother, and saying that Abu Bakr had given him a cup to drink, and that he was drunk with it. According to the early biographies, when the verses were brought to the Prophet ﷺ, he said that Ka'b had spoken the truth about one thing, that Bujayr had not found his father and mother on this, and he turned it into praise for Bujayr. According to the early biographies, Ka'b kept on writing verses against the Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims, and people recited them.

According to the early biographies, after the Prophet ﷺ came back from Taif, Bujayr wrote to his brother that the Prophet ﷺ had killed some of the men in Makkah who had insulted him, that others had run away, and that if he wanted to live, he should come to him repentant, for the Prophet ﷺ did not kill those who came repentant. Bujayr also sent verses. According to the early biographies, Ka'b found that the earth had grown narrow for him, and went to Madinah and stayed with a man he knew. He went to the mosque in the morning, wrapped up, and prayed the dawn prayer, and sat beside the Prophet ﷺ and put his hand in his. The Prophet ﷺ did not know who he was. He said that Ka'b ibn Zuhayr had come repentant, asking for safety, and asked whether the Prophet ﷺ would accept him if he brought him. The Prophet ﷺ said that he would. He said that he was Ka'b. A man of the Ansar leapt up and asked leave to strike off his head, and the Prophet ﷺ said to leave him, for he had come repentant, and had given up what he was on.

According to the early biographies, he then recited his ode that opens with Banat Su'ad, "Su'ad has departed," which begins in the manner of the old odes with the poet's longing for a woman who has left him, and moves on to the worries of the road, and then to praise for the Prophet ﷺ. In it, he said that he had been told that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had threatened him, that forgiveness from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is hoped for, and he asked him not to listen to what was said of him by informers. He said that the Messenger was a light by which one is guided, a drawn Indian sword from among the swords of Allah. According to the early biographies, he praised the Muhajirun, but, since one of the Ansar had leapt at him, said nothing of the Ansar, and was told to praise them as well, and did.

According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ stood, took off his cloak, a burdah, and put it on him. According to the early biographies, Ka'b kept it for the rest of his life, and Mu'awiyah offered to buy it from him, and he refused, and after Ka'b died, Mu'awiyah bought it from his heirs. The poem is also called al-Burdah, after the cloak. The much later poem known as the Burdah of al-Busiri, from Egypt, is a different work, said to have been written after a dream in which the Prophet ﷺ covered the poet with his cloak. According to the early biographies, his sons and grandsons were poets too, so that the name of Zuhayr's house lasted in poetry.

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