Bauer, Thomas

Zayn al-Dīn Khālid b. ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Bakr al-Jirjī (or al-Jirjāwī) al-Waqqād al-Azharī was a prolific ninth/fifteenth-century Egyptian scholar and the author of widely used textbooks and commentaries, especially in the field of grammar. He was born in Jirjā (Upper Egypt) aroun…

Adab , a term that appears early on in Islamic culture, was refined and redefined during the so-called Sunnī revival (fifth/eleventh century), with the advances in the linguistic sciences and in Islamic scholarship in general that took place during that era. 1. The adīb of the S…

Abū Ziyād Yazīd b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥurr al-Kilābī (d. c. 200/815–6), a member of the Kilāb tribe of ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa, grew up in a Bedouin environment in Arabia. During the reign of al-Mahdī (158–69/775–85) he migrated to Baghdad to establish contacts with the famous philologist…

ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Abū Ḥafṣ al-Shiṭranjī (d. during the caliphate of al-Muʿtaṣim, 218–27/833–42), was a poet of ghazal at the ʿAbbāsid court. Abū Ḥafṣ, whose father had been a mawlā of al-Manṣūr, grew up in the household of the caliph al-Mahdī. After al-Mahdī’s …

Abū Misḥal , Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Ḥarīsh (d. c.250/864), was a Bedouin expert on language and the material culture of Arabia, who taught in Baghdad in the first half of the third/ninth century. He was of Bedouin origin but had left the Najd for Baghdad at an early age…

Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Lughawī , ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. ʿAlī al-ʿAskarī al-Ḥalabī (d. 351/962), was an Arabic linguist who specialised in semantics and lexicography (ʿilm al-lugha), hence known as al-Lughawī. Abū l-Ṭayyib was born in ʿAskar Mukram and went to study in Baghdad. His main…

Abū Saʿīd Zayn al-Dīn Shaʿbān b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Qurashī al-Āthārī al-Shāfiʿī (765–828/1364–1425), was a grammarian and an author of badīʿiyyāt and didactic poems. Al-Āthārī was born in Mosul in Shaʿbān 765/May 1364. He was educated in Cairo, where he specialised in the fie…

Abū Saʿīd (or Abū Saʿd) Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-ʿAmīdī (d. probably 5 Jumādā II 443/14 October 1051) was a littérateur and literary critic of Fāṭimid Egypt. A trained philologist and grammarian, he served in the Fāṭimid chancellery of Cairo and reached the peak of his c…

Al-Naṣīr (= Naṣīr al-Dīn) b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Munāwī al-Ḥammāmī (609–712/1212 or 1213–1312) was a Cairene bath operator and poet whose epigrams, riddles, and strophic poems were widely acclaimed. He was one of several Ayyūbid and Mamlūk poets who, despite their humble origins an…

Jamāl al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm b. Yaḥyā, known as al-Jazzār , “the butcher” (601–79/1204–81), was an Egyptian tradesman and a highly acclaimed poet who, along with his panegyrics and love poetry, was famous for his self-deprecating poems on daily life. He was b…

ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Bakr al-Dimashqī al-Ḥanbalī, called ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Mawṣilī (d. 789/1387), was a poet most famous for his badīʿiyya (lit., marvel), a poem in praise of the prophet Muḥammad, which simultaneously exemplifies Arabic stylistic devices and alludes to …

Abū Thawr ʿAmr b. Maʿdīkarib al-Zubaydī was a pre- and early Islamic poet and warrior of Yemeni origin, famous for his poems on war, weapons, and bravery. Several dates have been proposed for his death. It is most probable that he died from wounds he suffered in the battle of Ni…

The time of the so-called “Sunnī revival,” which had its origins in the ascent of the Saljūqs around the middle of the fifth/eleventh century, can be considered the beginning of a period of crisis for Arabic literature. At that time, those Eastern regions that had provided a mos…

The Syrian poet Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Naṣr b. Ṣaghīr al-ʿAkkāwī al-Ḥalabī, known as al-Qaysarānī or Ibn al-Qaysarānī (478–548/1085–1153), is famous for his panegyrics, especially those he composed for ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī (r. 521–41/1127–46) and his son Nūr al-Dīn b. Zangī (r.…

Muhadhdhab al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥusayn Aḥmad b. Munīr b. Aḥmad b. Mufliḥ al-Ṭarābulusī (or al-Aṭrābulusī) al-Raffāʾ (the darner), known as Ibn Munīr al-Ṭarābulusī (b. 473/1080–1, d. 548/1153), was a Syrian poet famous for his panegyrics—especially those written for the Zangid rulers ʿIm…

Al-Sharīf Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Riḍā al-Ḥusaynī al-Mūsawī al-Ṭūsī, known as Ibn Daftarkhwān (d. 655/1257), was a poet and littérateur of Syria and Iraq. He became famous mainly for his collections of epigrams describing 1001 lovable boys and 1001 lovable girls. He w…