Labid ibn Rabia

Pre-Islamic Arab poet of legendary status; one of the authors of the Muʿallaqāt, the seven (or ten) prize odes hung on the Kaʿbah in pre-Islamic Mecca. He eventually accepted Islam, becoming a companion of the Prophet (SAW).

The Prophet (SAW) declared his most famous line the most truthful statement any poet has ever spoken: "Alā kullu shayʾin mā khalā Allāha bāṭilu", "Verily, everything other than Allah is useless." The Prophet reportedly quoted this himself, one of very few lines of poetry he recited.

His encounter with ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn in the Meccan period: Labīd was a visiting guest reciting poetry at a public majlis surrounded by Quraysh when ʿUthmān, recently stripped of Al-Walīd's protection, passed by. ʿUthmān agreed with the first line, "Allāh alone has true worth", then objected to the second: "Every pleasure will disappear." ʿUthmān replied: "Kadhabta, you have lied. The pleasures of Jannah will never disappear." Labīd, not knowing ʿUthmān's religious situation, was insulted by this perceived heckling. Someone in the crowd struck ʿUthmān and gave him a black eye. Labīd appears not to have instigated the violence but was the occasion for it.

He is a rare example of a pre-Islamic poet whom the Prophet explicitly praised for a line of theological truth.