The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy: Myth, Gender, and Ceremony in the Classical Arabic Ode. . . transcends the realm of literature and poetic criticism to include virtually every field of Arabic and Islamic studies. Roger Allen Throughout the classical Arabic literary tradition, from its roots in pre Islamic Arabia until the end of the Golden Age in the 10th century, the courtly ode, or qasida, dominated other poetic forms. In The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy, Suzanne Stetkevych explores how this poetry relates to ceremony and political