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Antarah Shaddad Absee was the paragon of Arabian chivalry, a tribal lord, a masterful warrior, a talented poet, and, before his glorious days, just an unacknowledged son
26 - 11
Antarah Shaddad Absee was the paragon of Arabian chivalry, a tribal lord, a masterful warrior, a talented poet, and, before his glorious days, just an unacknowledged son of a chieftain relegated to the same status as his mother, an Ethiopian slave, and tasked with herding livestock and other odd jobs across the lands that are now Saudi Arabia.
Like Alexander The Great before him, he had a famed horse carry him through his valorous feats, deeds which were executed by a sword as invincible as Arthur’s Excalibur.
As with all tales warped by the unfolding of time and embellished as they are passed across distances, Antarah’s legendary adventures are fused with a significant dose of mystique such that it becomes hard to know with certainty whether a man of such innumerable and successful exploits ever did exist, or is a pastiche composited from several heroes of the day.
According to one source, Antarah was born in 525 CE and joined his ancestors in 608 CE, though the year of death is also given as 615 according to other sources; regardless of the source, it is clear that Antarah lived in a pre-Islamic Arabia, and his tale spread far and wide on the wings of the faith that came shortly after his death (Prophet Muhammad’s Hijrah, the beginning of the Islamic Era, occurred in 622 CE).
Born in what is now Qassim Region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the house of Shedad, a chieftain/nobleman of the Banu Absee tribe then ruled by King Zoheir, Shedad’s father, Antarah’s story begins with an Abseean raiding party stealing into the domains of the Djezrila tribe. The plunder was bountiful, for the raiders made off with numerous camels, property and slaves.
Yet Shedad was so enamored of a black slave woman, described as a “woman of great beauty and fine proportions”, and took her and her two sons, Djaris and Shiboob, as his only claim from the loot. In time, Zebiba, as the woman was known, gave birth to a son, “as dark as an elephant, with eyes as black as night, and a head of shaggy hair.” He was named Antarah.
The child quickly revealed himself to be a prodigy, displaying courage and strength unexpected at his age, more so for a slave, for in the absence of an explicitly defined status for a child born from such diametrically opposed social classes, the child lived with his slave mother, working the fields and livestock.
So the chieftains of the Absee, wary of his rising star, connived to have the child’s status as a slave sealed by King Zoheir, but when he was presented to the king, the king was left in awe, and rewarded him with a chunk of meat.
Only that didn’t go as planned, for a dog in the tent intercepted the chunk and bolted off as the Romance of Antarah states,
“Rage gave Antar the fleetness of the wind. With mighty leaps he bounded after the dog. Swifter darted no eagle upon its prey than Antar pursued the rogue. With a mighty spring he caught it and seizing its jaws tore them asunder down to the beast’s shoulders, and in triumph he held the meat aloft.”
This presumably was before he was 10, for at that age, it is written that he slew a wolf that was threatening the livestock he was guarding, and presented to Zebiba the wolf’s severed head and limbs. Riding horses and perfecting his aim were his other occupations in his 