Since its emergence in the Middle East early in the seventh century, Islam has been practiced in many different cultural and linguistic areas throughout the world. As a result, Islamic religious poetry has been composed in a wide variety of languages. Among these, Arabic and Persian are distinctive for their transnational, or cosmopolitan, nature. Alongside these two classical languages, Islamic poets have employed a host of other languages, ranging from Bengali and Chinese to Swahili and Urdu. This article will summarize the development of Islamic poetry in Arabic and Persian, the important languages for classical Islamic literature, and will also commenti briefly on the nature and character of Islamic poetry in the regional vernacular traditions.

Arabic

Since the Qurʾān was revealed in a culture that prized the poetic arts and the beauty of oral expression, these values affected the role of poetry in many Muslim...