The tenth and eleventh centuries marked the golden age of Arabic poetry in al-Andalus. In the first of these centuries, the poets’ patron was the caliph at Córdoba. In the eleventh century, as al-Andalus broke up into taifas, each taifa ruler supported his own artists. Ibn Darraj al-Quastali (958–1030) revealed his most intimate feelings when he wrote in this poem about leaving his wife and child behind to find employment at the court of a taifa ruler.

When she approached to bid me farewell,

her sighs and moans breaking down my endurance,

reminding me of the times of love and joy,

while in the crib a little one gurgles,

unable to talk, but the sounds he makes

firmly lodge in the heart’s whims. . . .

I disobeyed the promptings of my heart to stay with him,

led on by a habit of constant travel day and night,

and the wing of parting took off with me, while the fear

of parting flew high with many wings.

Source: Salma Khadra Jayyusi, “Andalusi Poetry: The Golden Period,” in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 1:335.

Question to Consider

What image of family life does this poem project? What does it tell us about the different attractions of career and family in the Islamic world?