Antara ibn Shaddad: The Slave Freed by His Sword

He was born to a noble father of the tribe of Abs and an Ethiopian mother who was enslaved. So he grew up a slave himself, herding camels, unacknowledged by his father and kept away from the councils of free men. It is said that one day raiders attacked the tribe, and his father cried, "Charge, Antara!" He answered, "A slave does not know how to charge. He only knows how to milk and tend the herd." And his father replied, "Charge, and you are free." That young man was Antara ibn Shaddad, warrior and poet, author of one of the Mu'allaqat, the "Suspended Odes" of pre-Islamic Arabia, and the lover whose verses are filled with the name of his cousin Abla. But the Antara most people know today was largely shaped by a popular folk epic written centuries after his death. So where does history end, and where does the legend begin? In this episode, we meet Antara and the hidden human sides of his life and poetry.