They are all of the Golden Age of Arabic poetry (500—650) and are considered to be the best choices of poems from that period by different authors.
According to this account, al-Mufaddal al-Dabbi, already then a reputed expert of pre-Islamic poetry, was a personal tutor of al-Mansur's son, al-Mahdi.
One day, al-Mansur noticed and listened in on his son reciting an ode by the pre-Islamic poet al-Musayyab to his tutor.
Fictional Arab people South Arabian deities The collection is a record of the highest importance of the thought and poetic art of Pre-Islamic Arabia in the immediate period before the appearance of the Prophet Muhammad.
While ancient themes of virtue; hospitality to the guest and the poor, extravagance of wealth, valour in battle, tribal loyalty, are praised yet other practices forbidden in Islam—Wine, gambling (the game of maisir), etc.,—are all celebrated by poets professing adherence to the faith.
126) by Abu Dhu'ayb al-Hudhail on the death of his sons is one of the most admired; almost every verse of this poem is cited in illustration of some phrase or meaning of a word in the national Arabic lexicons.
[2] The first extant written collection of poetry containing pre-Islamic works was by al-Mufaddal ad-Dabbi (d. after 780 AD).
Only 13 (10%) are from the southern Hejaz, with 2 from the Quraysh (who were ultimately not a poetically significant group in this period, though their status as-such would be inflated later[9]).
[5][11] This number is included in the recension of al-Anbari, who received the text from Abu 'Ikrima of Dabba, who read it with Ibn al-A‘rābī, al-Mufaḍḍal's stepson and inheritor of the tradition.
It is noticeable that this traditional text, and the accompanying scholia, as represented by al-Anbari's recension, derive from al-Mufaddal's fellow philolgists of the Kufan school.
Sources from the rival school of Basra claimed however that al-Mufaddal's original dīwān ('collection') was a much smaller volume of poems.
In his commentary (Berlin MS), Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Marzuqi gives the number of original poems as thirty, or eighty in a clearer passage,[A]; and mentions too, that al-Asma'i and his Basran grammarians, augmented this to a hundred and twenty.