{"id":615,"date":"2015-01-28T22:51:56","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T21:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/?p=615"},"modified":"2015-01-29T01:32:55","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T00:32:55","slug":"antar-og-abla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/antar-og-abla\/","title":{"rendered":"Antar and Abla"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I came across a piece of music that I had not heard before. It put me on the trail of an interesting story. Unfortunately, I did not find the whole story, only fragments, in the sources I have available. But I put the pieces together and have made a kind of retelling of the story. Of course, it is not completely correct and all that, but I would rather have those who know it correct me, either in the comments or by send<\/a> me a mail<\/p>\n

Antar and Abla<\/p>\n

In Arabia there once lived a slave boy named Antarah ibn Shadd\u0101d. But only his mother used his proper name. The others simply called him Antar. He was the son of Shaddad, a respected Tuareg chief of the Banu Abs tribe. His mother's name was Zabibah, and she was a slave girl whom Shadd\u0101d had captured during a raid in Al-Habash in what is now Ethiopia. Like his mother, Antar was also dark-skinned.<\/p>\n

Despite his slave status, he won everyone's respect by becoming a skilled horseman and a powerful and strong warrior. He also proved to be good at poetry and singing. Many evenings he sat playing and singing outside the tent, and then many listeners gathered. Among them was a young girl who always appeared when he played and sang. It was one such evening. He had gathered a large crowd of listeners outside the tent where he sat playing and declaiming poems. At the very back of the audience sat the girl named Abla Bint Malik. She was the daughter of Malik, Shaddad's brother. Therefore, she was Antar's cousin. Antar had not particularly noticed her before, but on this particular evening she was so moved by his fine poems that she had to wipe a tear. Just then Antar looked up and straight into her face, which was illuminated by the moon. He had never seen a more beautiful face. She was like a shining full moon. He fell in love with her immediately. When he stopped playing and everyone went to their tents, he managed to whisper to her that he would wait for her by a large rock that lay just outside the camp.<\/p>\n

She did not come to the stone that night, but he was steadfast and waited for her night after night. Finally, after many days, he heard footsteps in the sand. It was a moonless night, and he could see nothing at all. But he knew who was coming. This stone eventually became their regular meeting place, and many evenings they sat together here in the dark and talked.<\/p>\n

The two fell more and more in love with each other. Among the Tuareg, it was customary for a cousin to have the first right to ask for a girl's hand. Despite being considered a slave, Antar plucked up courage and went to her father, Malik, to ask to marry her. But Able was a true Arab of fine lineage and Malik would not marry her off to a slave, and to someone who was not a purebred Arab.<\/p>\n

War broke out with a neighboring tribe. Shaddad told Antar to go out and fight with the other warriors. Antar looked at his father regretfully and replied, \"The slave does not know how to conquer or defend. The only thing he is good for is to milk goats and serve his master.\" Shaddad replied, \"Defend your tribe, O Antar, and you are a free man.\"<\/p>\n

Antar fought and won. He chased the invaders away and freed the women who had been captured. Now he had won his freedom. He went to Malik again and asked for Abla's hand in marriage. This time he did not receive a categorical no, but was given a series of difficult tasks that he had to solve first. As he solved the tasks, he was given more and more new ones. Finally, Abla was married off to a tall Arab while Antar was out fighting the invaders.<\/p>\n

Antar never forgot his love for Abla, and much of his poetry is about her. Perhaps it was when he learned that she was married that he wandered into the desert in disappointment. Tired of people and their intrigues and wars, he wandered into the desert to find solace in solitude. While wandering around in the desert, he suddenly saw a gazelle being attacked by a large bird of prey. The bird swooped down from a great height and planted its claws in the gazelle's back. Antar rushed forward and fought with the bird. After a long chase, he managed to kill the bird of prey and break its claws so that the gazelle could get free. The gazelle ran away, but Antar was tired from the chase. Exhausted, he lay down to sleep.<\/p>\n

While he was sleeping, he dreamed that he was visited by Gul-Nazar, the fairy queen of Palmyra in Syria. It turned out that the gazelle he had saved was actually Gul-Nazar who had transformed herself. In gratitude for his rescue, she promised that as a reward he would receive the three greatest joys in life: retribution, power, and love. Encouraged by this, he then added a fourth wish, that if he should tire of these things, the queen would take his life.<\/p>\n

He fell in love with Gul-Nazar and eventually forgot about revenge and retribution. Even power was not so tempting as long as he could hold the queen in his arms. But eventually he grew tired of that too. Then Gul-Nazar took him in her arms and kissed him so intensely and for so long that life finally ebbed away.<\/p>\n

Another ending is that he woke up from the dream and found himself in the desert. He then returned to fight against the tribe's enemies. But he never forgot Abla as long as he lived. He died in a battle against the neighboring Tai tribe. The war he fought was over a dispute over some horses.<\/p>\n

Antar was not only a warrior, he was also a great poet, and his poems are well preserved. Many heroic poems have also been composed about him. If you wander around the coffee houses in Arabia, you may well hear a story about Antar. If you are really lucky, you will be able to hear the entire romance between Antar and Abla, with all the details and artistic embellishments. He lived from 525 to 608, that is, before Islam. The Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov has written a symphonic suite<\/a> about him<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Her om dagen kom jeg over et musikkstykke jeg ikke hadde h\u00f8rt f\u00f8r. Det satte meg p\u00e5 sporet av en interessant historie. Dessverre fant jeg ikke hele historien, bare bruddstykker, i de kildene jeg har tilgjengelig. Men jeg satte sammen … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bjorngrande.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}