This article will deal with the synchronic history and methods of composition, presentation and transmission of naqaid poetry according to Abu Ubayda’s book Kitab al-naqaid: Naqaid Jarır wa-l-Farazdaq. Despite the fame gained by naqaid poetry in the Umayyad era, many aspects of it are still ambiguous. Unfortunately, many of the scholars who have dealt with such aspects have arrived at their conclusions through a rapid treatment of only some of the accounts mentioned in various classical works. A considerable number of these studies neglect other accounts that seem to reveal important data concerning many aspects of the naqaid poetry. In addition, in most cases they refrain from analyzing complete poems in order to support or disprove the conclusions they had extracted from the accounts. Such a method of analyzing and discussing the material at hand is insufficient. It is imperative to peruse all the available accounts and to make a profound analysis of each one, since each account may shed new light on the naqaid poetry and the naqaid contests. In addition to the accounts, analyses of the poems themselves are very important, since they examine the reliability and credibility of the prose accounts.