The name his mother gave him at birth was Al Hasan but people often called him Abu Nuwas which means ‘The Father of the Locks of Hair’, because of two long side-locks that came down till his shoulders.Ī center of learning at that time, Basra was the city that gave Abu Nuwas his first launch pad to the world of Arabic literature. His father, Hani was a soldier in the army of the Abbasid Caliph Marwan II but he never met his father and did not know much about him.

Abu Nuwas and one of his students Origins of Nuwasīorn to a Persian mother and Arab father in the city of Ahvaz in modern day Iran, Abu Nuwas Al-Hasan ibn Hani Al-Hakimi, began his early education in literature at a very young age. A man who wrote some of the most seductive poetry for multiple gender relationships now lies forgotten in the annals of history.

Abu Nuwas, one of the greatest classical Arab poets in history has a past that is cherry-picked and showcased to the world today. But there was a Muslim poet, 1200 years ago, who immortalized homo-eroticism in his poems without the fear of being killed or ostracized. The entertaining stories are full of gems of wisdom, ideas on justice and morality in day-to-day relations between people and animals, and between animals and animals in a world in which brute force is pitted against cleverness and wits, which always triumphs.In an Abrahamanic world where eroticism is a sin, homo-eroticism is something that is beyond the very realms of sinning. In addition to the Abunuwas tales, there are other stories, which come from the Swahili story telling tradition. Many of the tales appear also in the classic One Thousand and One Nights in which Harun Al Rashid is at the centre as the wise and just Sultan. His tales spread far and wide in the Arab countries around the Mediterranean Sea but also in Turkey, Uzbekistan and beyond. Abu Nawas, the nickname of their author, lived in Baghdad, Iraq, during the reign of Harun Al Rashid (763-809) and was considered the most accomplished Arab poet of his age. Hadithi za Abunuwasi have become an integral part of Swahili literature.

Whilst the Abunuwasi tales are available in English translations from the Arabic originals, these translations into English from an early Swahili edition add a new and interesting dimension to them.Ībunuwas (or Abu Nawas) tales are loved by young and old readers alike throughout the world and on the East African coast which has had centuries old contacts with Arab traders and Islamic scholars. The stories were first published in 1935. Tales of Abunuwas and Other Stories are translations of Hadithi za Abunuwasi na Hadithi Nyingine, from Swahili into English by John Lewis-Barned and retold here by his daughter Suzi Lewis-Barned.

Abu nawas story