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Standing by the Ruins

Standing by the Ruins is a title borrowed from an early pre-Islamic poetic form: wuquf 'ala al-atlal, known as ruin poetry. This motif is believed to have originated in the 6th century, with Imru’ al-Qais, the last king of the Kindite kingdom in the Arabian Peninsula, who lived in exile. Considered one of the greatest figures of Arabic literature, his most famous poem describes a character longing for his beloved while looking at a devastated campsite. With this, he became the precursor of a style that is still relevant today, a genre that reflects on love and loss, on destruction and the passage of time, through the lens of abandoned, destroyed or vanishing places.