The Moon in Pre-Islamic Poetry

This research study is about "The Moon in Pre-Islamic Poetry" and consists of an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction I talked about the reasons for choosing this research and the goal that I aimed to reach out of this study. The first chapter is divided into two sections. The first section tackles the religious status that the moon possessed in the old thinking and beliefs of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese and Jews, to find out that they looked upon it with the reverence, as distinct god which they went to worship, and approached with rituals and offerings. It was linked in their minds with some creatures, especially the bull. in addition to the acquisition of special legendary dimension. In the second section, I talked about the religious status of the moon in the pre-Islamic era, as I did not find a difference between their view and the look of the nations before them to the moon. However I found so much similarity between them up to the point of compliance, and concluded that the fear of the Moon as a natural phenomenon is variable, and was one of the main reasons for this sanctification, believing that it may please him, and protect them from their expected evil. It is worth mentioning that my study has chosen to take the legendary approach because, of the almost absolute control of them on the religious beliefs and thinking. The second chapter dealt with the positioning and role of the moon in Pre-Islamic Poetry, where I found that many poets have invested the Moon in many of the purposes of poetry, such as women and lamentation and praise, satire, and pride, war and animal, in addition to handling most situations that the poet dealt with the moon and its association with these purposes. I divided the third chapter into two sections. In the first section I studied the image of the moon in the poetry of the pre-Islamic era and found that the poet linked between the moon and images of Moot, metaphors, motor and color, which helped him to impart poetic Masterpieces on an image. I also discovered that the images of the poet were not traditional images, with fixed elements. They were numerous and varied without breaking the general framework of the nature of the image in the Pre-Islamic Poetry. The second section of this chapter, I talked about the religious dimensions of the image of the moon, psychological, social, and found that the moon has left its linkage of various significant impact on the images associated with these dimensions. It appears from these dimensions that poets return consciously or unconsciously to be linked in some cases, between those dimensions in some images. Meanings varied and acquired a new significance, as it introduced a new dimension with an new significance and logic. In conclusion, I included the findings of this study, followed by a list of sources and references, arranged alphabetically.