The Mantle Odes

Abstract

Non-Muslims, perhaps blinded by the claims of their own faiths, have longunderestimated Muslim reverence for the Prophet Muhammad. By thesame token, they have paid relatively little attention to Muslim traditionsof praising the Prophet, whether it be the naths sung by Sufi qawwali musiciansin South Asia, the maulid lectures on the first twelve days of Rabi al-Awwal ‒ or the biographies of the Prophet, which have become so numerousover the past century. This is unfortunate because, intermingled withpraise for the Prophet, there are often other messages, which non-Muslimsneed to note if they are better to understand their Muslim neighbors.The Mantle Odes contains translations, and interpretations in their context,of three of the most highly prized poems in the Arab-Islamic traditionin praise of the Prophet. One poem dates from the time of the Prophet, thesecond from the thirteenth century AC under the Mamluks, and the thirdfrom Egypt under colonial rule in the early twentieth century. The author’saim is “to bring these Islamic devotional masterpieces into the purview ofcontemporary literary interpretation in a way that makes them culturallyrelevant and poetically effective for the modern reader, whether Muslim ornon-Muslim” (xi) ...