Irwin - Chapter 3

Picking up again Robert Irwin's book Night & Horses & The Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. Chapter 3 is about the period from Qur'an till 750A.D., i.e. end of the Umayyad dynasty. I will only include names of authors whose works get quoted separately as part of the intended "anthology"; and only include cited authors who fell between the official scope of the chapter's coverage. 

- Abu Dhu'ayb al-Hudhali (d. 649?): poems of lament

- Jamil ibn 'Abdallah ibn Ma'mar al-Udhri (c.660-701): leader of Udhrite school of poetry

- Ghiyath ibn Ghawth al-Akhtal (d. before 710): "most accomplished eulogist of the Umayyads"; panegyric qasidas

- al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf - governor in Iraq (694-713), purported delivered speech in rhymed prose later anthologized by Tabari, al-Mas'udi, Jahiz, Ibn Qutayba, and Qalqashandi; also credited with introducing diacritics to Arabic script for short vowels; patron of the trio of poets Akhtal, al-Farazdaq and Jarir

- 'Umar ibn Abi Rabi'a (644?-721?): Diwan; 1st great poet of love

- Tamman ibn Ghalid al-Farazdaq (d. 728): satirical poems; plagiarist

- Jarir ibn 'Atiyya (d.728): satirical poems

- Walid ibn Yazid (r.743-744): briefly Umayyad caliph: libertine poet, also musician and composer

- 'Abd al-Hami ibn Yahya (d. 750, "al-Katib"): secretary of Marwan II (r. 744-750), author of earliest surviving literary prose with 3 epistles, e.g. Risala il al-Kuttab (advocating adab learning)