Imru' al-Qais ibn Hujr al-Kindi, also known as Handaj (520-565 AD), was an Arab poet and knight. Al-Asma'i narrated that Abu Ubaid was asked about the best poets, and he replied: "Imru' al-Qais when he rides, al-A'sha when he is happy, Zuhair when he desires, and al-Nabigha when he is afraid." One of the most famous poets of the pre-Islamic era, he headed the first class of Arab poets, which included Zuhair ibn Abi Salma, al-Nabigha al-Dhubyani, and al-A'sha. He is one of the authors of the seven famous Mu'allaqat. He was one of the most out-of-the-box poets of his time, pioneering many meanings and images. Imru' al-Qais was a pioneer in similes, metaphors, and not a few descriptions and witty expressions. He was the first to cry and pretend to cry, and to compare women to white gazelles and goat horns to sticks.
He was born in Najd and grew up inclined towards luxury and entertainment, like the sons of kings. He would flirt in his love poetry and narrate obscene love stories. He is considered one of the first poets to introduce poetry to women's quarters. He was a dissolute poet who would often hang out with the vagabonds of the Arabs and a drinker of alcohol. Imru' al-Qais's poetry took a path that contradicted the traditions of his environment, adopting a dissolute lifestyle that kings despised, as Ibn al-Kalbi mentions: "He would walk among the Arab quarters accompanied by a mixture of the riffraff of the Arabs from Tayy', Kalb, and Bakr ibn Wa'il. If he came across a pond, meadow, or hunting ground, he would stop, slaughter a sacrifice, drink wine, and give them drink, while a female singer would sing to him. He would continue like this until the pond's water was gone and he was replaced by another." He adopted a lifestyle that his father did not approve of, so he expelled him and sent him back to Hadhramaut to live with his uncles and his people, hoping to change him. But Handaj continued his debauchery and continued to accompany the Arab vagabonds and became accustomed to their lifestyle of wandering among the Arab neighborhoods, hunting, attacking other tribes and capturing their property.
Imru' al-Qais' religion was paganism, but he was not sincere in it. It is narrated that when he set out to avenge his father, he passed by an idol of the Arabs that they venerated, called Dhu Khulasa. He cast lots with his arrows, which were three: the commander, the forbidder, and the one lying in wait. He swung them around, and the forbidder emerged. He did this three times, then gathered them, broke them, and struck the idol's face with them. He said, "Even if your father had been killed, you would not have disobeyed me."
The life of Imru' al-Qais was not long in terms of the number of years, but it was long, very long in terms of the accumulation of events, the abundance of production, and the quality of creativity. He traveled throughout most of the Arab lands and visited many tribal sites. He even went far from the Arabian Peninsula and reached the lands of the Romans, to Constantinople. He won victory and sought victory, fought, and took revenge after a life filled at first with amusement and drinking, then with strength and determination until his body became tired and exhausted, and a disease like smallpox, or smallpox itself, spread within him while he was in a foreign land. He met his death there in Ankara in a year that historians can hardly agree on, although some of them believe it was 540 AD. His grave is now located on the Hidirlik Hill in Ankara.