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In most of its periods, the ‘Abbasid time was the time of amusement and dissoluteness. During it
the people were interested in delight and singing. They rushed to enjoy all kinds of the forbidden
things such as drinking wine, playing gambling, drinking with slave girls and boys, and the like
from among the things made forbidden by Allah. The ruling persons encouraged them to practice
such abominable deeds. For they themselves were immersed in abominable deeds, sins and
urging the people to that amusement. We regard the poets of that time as a measure for the
corrupt manners, for they correctly represented the whole trends and inclinations of the society.
Their poetry represents neither earnestness nor activity in the public life, nor does it picture any
reality of cultural life. Rather the poetry describes wine, songstresses, urging people to practice
pleasures and low desires. Their poems in this respect are black pages in Arabic literature. An
example of this is that the poets of the ‘Abbasid royal palace met and said: “Where shall we spend
our evening.” They invited each other to their houses. So Abu Nu’as suggested that that invitation
should be poetry and not prose, and that the group had to decide the best of them in composing
poetry. Accordingly, Dawud b. Razeen al‐Sabati said:
Rise (and go) to the house of amusement and the hidden shadow of a house in which are flowers,
narcissus, jasmine, fragrant musk, redolent plants, a songstress with coquetry and sedate reason,
who sings all the original, clear (poems) of Ibn Razeen.
They all composed poems urging (people) to practice pleasures, amusement, and dissoluteness.
This kind of corrupt poetry indicates that mischief and bad manners, and that the people
abandoned the religious teachings that forbade that. The poetry represents the characteristics of
the life in that time. For their sentiments and feelings clung to amusement and dissoluteness.
Their hearts clung to wine. So they described and praised it. Abu Nu’as devoted his mental efforts
to describing cups, glasses, vats (of wine), barmen, vintners, drinking companions, and grapevines.
He mentioned different kinds of wine and how they were made. He made a distinction between
this and that in taste, color, and smell. He explained the intoxication and its movement in limbs
and heads. He not only explained that in a technical way, but also he explained it with love. He
loved wine so much that he adorned it.
Drinking wine was associated with singing and dancing at that time. The princes and the ladies
from among the high life in Baghdad took part in certain concert parties. Private house prepared
for wine, singing, beating tambourines and drums spread there. The gardens in the outskirts of
Baghdad were full of bars to which the poets, the youth, and the young ladies frequently went. In
a poem of his, Muti‘ b. Ayas described the bar in Sabah’s garden. The abbeys also became places
of drinking wine, love, and dissoluteness.
Baghdad, rather all cities of Iraq, became houses of amusement, drinking wine, and dissoluteness.
Accordingly, the people followed their low desires and abandoned the Islamic values that forbade
that. That brought about bad manners. The people were absorbed in sin, abominable things, and
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