Recreation of the Prophet Job in Contemporary Arabic Poetry

Contemporary Arab poets have started to recall classic and especially religious figures in their poems to present experiences and ideologies, to rescue the poetry from reportage state and also to enhance their own poetry. The reason why they make use of these religious figures in their poetry is their potential implications and their compatibility with poet’s own current experiences. Poets also make use of these figures to convey their intellectual concepts in a symbolic form. The present study tries to investigate the presence of the prophet Job in contemporary Arabic poetry. In this regard, we first take a glance at personal features of the prophet Job from the perspective of Quran and Old Testament, then from the perspective of three contemporary Arab poet’s approach, namely Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Mahmoud Darwish, Abd al-Aziz al-Maghaleh, to see how they represent this religious figure in their poetry. The result shows that Job in the contemporary Arabic poetry is an indication of their individual and social concerns.