What is "qasida"

n. An Arabic or Persian elegiac monorhyme poem, usually having a tripartite structure.

n. (alternative spelling of qasida English)

The qaṣīdaᵗ (also spelled qaṣīdah; is originally an Arabic word Arabic: قصيدة, plural qasā'id, قــصــائـد; that was passed to some other languages such as Persian: قصیده or چكامه, chakameh, in Turkish: kaside) is an ancient Arabic word and form of writing poetry, often translated as ode, passed to other cultures after the Arab Muslim expansion. The word qasidah is still being used in its original birthplace, Arabia, and in all Arabic speaking countries.

Well known qasā'id include the Qasida Burda ("Poem of the Mantle") by Imam al-Busiri and Ibn Arabi's classic collection "The Interpreter of Desires".

The classic form of qasida maintains a single elaborate metre throughout the poem, and every line rhymes on the same sound. It typically runs from fifteen to eighty lines, and sometimes more than a hundred. The genre originates in Arabic poetry and was adopted by Persian poets, where it developed to be sometimes longer than a hundred lines.