Explore the Craft of Writing Arabic Verse
Qasida, (purpose poem) sometimes spelled kasida, is an ode that dates back to pre-Islamic Arabia and the Bedouins of the desert. It was originally sung in praise of a tribe or to denigrate an enemy. The poem is made up of a long string of complete couplets called shers and can be as long as 100 couplets. It is a multi-sectional, poly-thematic poem. Over centuries it developed into a courtly poem of praise of a patron and expanded into elegies, satire and more philosophical subjects. The form has endured to the present, although it has taken a back