The Dance of Love and Loss: Jinaan and Abi Nawas

In the second century, a poet was born who filled his time with his poetry. Most people in his time loved his poetry, whether they were laypeople or poets themselves, and he stayed above everyone else in poetry till this day, according to them, and that poet was Abi Nawas.

Abi Nawas is known for his controversial life and poetry about alcohol, but he also explores deeper, more touching themes about love and loss. His poetry reflects a rich amount of human emotions and experiences, and in this article, we will talk about points of his life that led him that way, especially his story with Jinaan and the poetry he wrote for her.

The Melancholy of Loss

Abu Nuwas’s poetry often grapples with the theme of loss, whether it be the loss of a loved one, the fading of youthful joys, or the inevitable passage of time. His verses reveal a deep sense of nostalgia and a recognition of the transient nature of life and pleasure.

The poetry of losing a loved one a lot of the time relates to his heartbreak when he was not able to be with his beloved Jinaan.

Their story starts when Abi Nawas started upon his independence from the help of teachers when he was given permission by his teachers to compose poems on his own. At this time, he fell in love with a servant called Jinaan who worked for the family of Abdi Wahab al-Thaqafi.

He loved her with a very passionate love, and he wrote for her the most touching of his poetry, and the way he wrote about her was rare to see at his time because he was composing poems from a feeling that was very real to him.

Ahmad Abdi Majid al-Ghazali says, describing this: “With the sincerity of emotion and the heat of feeling, he was able to create unprecedented meanings. He depicts the affection of the lover, the affection of the lover, his caution against publicizing his affairs, and describes the position of his beloved in his heart.”

Jinaan happened to have been going to Hajj one time with her master, and after hearing this, he would immediately go there even before her. He would write poems about this as well, pointing towards the fact that his love was reciprocated because he mentions that when they were kissing the black stone, their cheeks touched each other and that he hid his face from his side with his hand, and that she did the same so that no one could see them. This does not happen to people except they have been blinded by love because they have not seen the number of people around them and how holy the place is. But the reality was not how Abi Nawas pictured it because the love was only one-sided and his verses were only a hallucination of his and a dream after losing his beloved and a need he couldn’t get in reality, so he made it happen as a dream.

And the evidence that his love was one-sided is that Jinan used to strongly deny that she had any kind of relationship with him. Also, Jinan said to a woman who talked to her about Abi Nawas and the poetry he wrote about her, “Do you think there is nothing left for me except loving this dog?”

 On another occasion of her showing her disinterest in him, Abu Nawas conveying it in poetry said:

I saw the one that lived in the palace, and I loved her.

The love of Urwa al-Adri and Najdi Lover.

When her abandonment went too far, I said, “Connect with me."

She said with this face, hoping for my love, Are you?

So I told her, “If only there were faces in the market,

And it was for money.

I would have changed my face and taken his place.

Perhaps you will fall in love with me from then on.

And even if I am ugly, I am a poet.

She said, “And even if you were Nabiqah al-Ja’di [I wouldn’t accept]”.

Even though this is how she felt about him, Abi Nawas never stopped his love for her, and he used to always make sure that he ended up with her, but he ended up being a hopeless romantic due to her and the amount of time he spent apart from her. 

Examples of poems he wrote about her:

The face of Janan is the excellence in a garden, 

 in it, all colors come together.  

 Its flowers are made for the eyes,

Forbidden from the fingertips of the perpetrator.

I only have a look at it,

Every human being joins me in it.

Here, he is describing his beloved being a pleasure to the eye and happiness to his heart except she refused her lover because of her chastity.

This was very common for the Arab community, it was said to a man from Bani Udra “What’s wrong with the men of your tribe dying because of the desire of a woman” and he replied, “Because there is beauty in our woman and in our men there is chastity.  And scholars have said that the one that dies because of love is a martyr”.

Abu Nawas conveyed how cold she was to him in this verse saying:

If I was complaining to a human, it would relieve me of the humiliation of complaining.

But I am complaining to a rock […].

He also expresses the disinterest of his family in his pain:

Woe to my family! I wear out before their eyes on the bed, and they don't know what's my disease.

If your asceticism in this world were as your asceticism in me, you would have walked on water

Their story ends with them not ending up together but it left for us the rich poetry of Abi Nawas. Poetry that offers a rich and nuanced exploration of loss and love. Through his evocative language and poignant imagery, he captures the complexities of human emotions and the bittersweet nature of the human experience. 

May Allah have mercy on the soul of Abi Nawas.