What is the Burda? Introduction The Qasida Al-Burda (The Poem of the Mantle), known as The Burdah, is a poem in praise of The Prophet ﷺ. It was composed by Al Busiri in the 7th century Hijri and is one of the most widely recited and memorised poems in the world. The actual title of the poem is The Celestial Lights in Praise of the Best of Creation (الكواكب الدرية في مدح خير البرية). Qasidat al-Burda (Arabic: قصيدة البردة, "Ode of the Mantle"), or al-Burda for short, is a thirteenth-century ode