Literary Criticism in the First Islamic Era and the Umayyad Period Critical Study of Works and Adages

Abstract

This research discusses the critical works attributed to the first Islamic era and the Umayyad period. The research concludes that these works were fabricated and made up in the Abbasid period in support of the view of people who made them up. Also, the research pointed out the signs of these fabrications such as the weakness of the narrators, and the admission of the authors who made them up. Among these signs were the fact that these works discussed issues that were not known before the Abbasid period in addition to the contradiction, stereotypical patterns, and similarities of the topics. An exception to that was what has been narrated that some grammarians composed some lyrics of some poets in addition to some sayings of the people of the second Hijri century. Some of these sayings may have been said in the Umayyad period. The research also showed that even if these narrations were true, there was nothing in them indicating a state of literary criticism or a development of what is expected to be a literary criticism in the pre-Islamic period. Most of these works were nothing but a comparison of some meanings agreed upon by the poets or a kind of judgment who was the best poet in that time.