Hajw

in Arabic literature, the poetry of mockery, defamation, invective, and ridicule. The genre constitutes the opposite of panegyric (madh, madih) in the medieval literature of the peoples of the Near and Middle East and Middle Asia. It evolved at the same time as panegyric poetry, serving as its antithesis. It was an essential weapon of the professional court poet in his struggle for survival. The hajw was most often directed against a rival poet and other personal enemies and was also written upon the order of rulers to discredit opponents or disgraced nobles. Rival poets often exchanged several works of invective, which were frequently compiled as a single manuscript and became widely known.

As the hajw was personal in nature, it did not rise to the level of generalized socially oriented literature or civic poetry. It is not satire in the genuine sense of the word, although one exception is the satirical work of the 14th-century Persian poet Ubayd-i Zaki. A specific form of hajw known as shahrashub developed in the 16th century. By the 19th century, the hajw invective had matured as civic poetry and political satire.