KHANSA', AL-

( (Arabic: The Pug-nosed), ) died after 630 byname of Tumadir Bint 'amr Ibn Al-harith Ibn Ash-sharid one of the greatest Arab poets, famous for her elegies. The deaths of two of her brothers, sometime before the advent of Islam, threw al-Khansa' into deep mourning; it was her elegies on these deaths and that of her father that made her the most celebrated poet of her time. She accepted Islam with her tribe but persisted in wearing the heathen sign of mourning. When her four sons were slain in the Battle of Qadisiyah (637), the caliph 'Umar is said to have written her a letter congratulating her on their heroism and assigned her a pension. The collected poetry of al-Khansa', the Diwan (edited by L. Cheikho, 1895; published in French translation in 1889), reflects the pagan fatalism of the tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia. The poems are generally short and imbued with a strong and traditional sense of despair at the irretrievable loss of life. The elegies of al-Khansa', if not particularly original, were highly influential, especially among later elegists.