What is "tarafa"

Tarafa ( / ALA-LC: Ṭarafah ibn al-‘Abd ibn Sufyān ibn Sa‘d Abū ‘Amr al-Bakrī al-Wā’ilī), was a 6th century Arabian poet of the tribe of the Bakr. He was the half-brother or nephew of the elegist Al-Khirniq bint Badr.

After a wild and dissipated youth spent in Bahrain, left his native land after peace had been established between the tribes of Bakr and Taghlib and went with his uncle Al-Mutalammis (also a poet) to the court of the king of Hira, 'Amr ibn-Hind (died c. 568–69), and there became companion to the king's brother. Hira was as the time a vassal of the Persian Sasanian Empire. Having ridiculed the king in some verses he was sent with a letter to Dadafruz Gushnasban, the Persian Governor of Southern shores of the Persian Gulf, but Tarafa and his uncle managed to escape during the journey.

One of his poems is contained in the Mo'allakat.

His Diwan has been published in Wilhelm Ahlwardt's The Diwans of the Six Ancient Arabic Poets ( London, 1870). Some of his poems have been translated into Latin with notes by B. Vandenhoff ( Berlin, 1895).