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Abstract
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Mourning self-torture, as an important element in elegy, had a significant role in Jaheli literature, but, due to its negative, woe-doubling effects, it has had a lesser role in Islamic elegy. While some poets have boasted about their use of mourning self-torture, others, influenced by the Islamic rationalism of the Prophet Muhammad’s tradition, have rejected it. Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) has treated the concept in two opposite ways be admitting it in certain situations and rejecting it in others. The conflict between emphasizing mourning self-torture and stressing patience can be widely seen in elegiac poetry including poems written by authors who wrote both in the Jaheli and the Islamic ages.
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