The fat bride and the foolish messengers: humorizing the love theme in an early Islamic poem

Abstract The main premise of this study is that the long poem by early Islamic poet Ḥumayd b. Thawr al-Hilālī (d. ca. 68–70/688–690) has a dual function. One is expressive and poetic—striving for elegant and affective verses mainly related to love. The other is humoristic and attempts to amuse. The poem’s humor appears predominantly in the passages describing a corpulent bride, and the failure of two go-betweens to set up a meeting between lovers, with the narration of multiple love affairs further contributing to its comedy. The main objective of this study is to shed light on the use and techniques of humor in classical Arabic culture, a topic neglected in modern research.