Court poet to Harun al-Rashid and Amin in Baghdad, Abu Nuwas refused the inherited bedouin imagery of the desert ode and made the urban Iraqi tavern, the boy cup-bearer, and the wine-cellar his subject. His khamriyyat (wine poems) and mujuniyyat (libertine verses) put openly homosexual love and ecstatic drunkenness into the Abbasid canon — and have made him a recurring target of state and religious censorship for twelve centuries.
Recurring themes
the wine poem
the urban Abbasid Baghdad
same-sex love in the Arabic canon
rebellion against the inherited form
Selected works
- c.800Diwan Abi Nuwas