Abu al-Walīd Muslim ibn al-Walīd al-Anṣārī (Arabic: أبو الوليد مسلم بن الوليد الأنصاري; c. 130 H/748 AD– 207 H/823 AD),[1] also known as Ṣarī‘ al-Ghawānī (Arabic: صريع الغواني, "The One Knocked Down by the Fair"[2]), was among the finest poets of the early Abbasid period, and mawla of the Ansar.[3] As worded by Hilary Kilpatrick, he was patronized by Abbasid dignitaries, one of the first masters of the "refined" badiʿ style,[a] best known for wine and love songs, also composed panegyrics.[1]

As worded by the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, he was born and brought up in Kufa. He moved to Baghdad in the reign of Harun al-Rashid before the Barmakid debacle of 187 H/794 AD.[3]

He gained favour by Al Fadl bin Sahl, a wazeer in the reign of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn and was appointed as a postmaster in Jurjān (Gorgan in present-day Iran) by al-Maʾmūn and remained and later in Isfahan. He withdrew from poetry after Al Fadl was murdered and led a lonely life until his death.[5] He is buried in Gorgan.

Edition and translation

Notes

  1. ^ Quoting S. A. Bonebakker,

    According to Ibn al-Muʿtazz, badīʿ devices do not appear for the first time in the work of the early Abbasid poets such as Bashshār, Muslim b. al-Walīd and Abū Nuwās; still they are more frequently found in their work than in the poems of the ancients."[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Kilpatrick, Hilary (2003). Making the Great Book of Songs: Compilation and the Author's Craft in Abû l-Faraj al-Isbahânî's Kitâb al-aghânî. Routledge. p. 337.
  2. ^ Goldziher, Ignác; Somogyi, József (1959). A Short History of Arabic Literature. p. 57.
  3. ^ a b Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. Vol. 2. 1998. p. 557.
  4. ^ Bonebakker, S. A. (1990). "Ibn al-Muʿtazz and Kitāb al-Badīʿ". Abbasid Belles Lettres. p. 396.
  5. ^ Brockelmann, Carl (2017). History of the Arabic Written Tradition: Supplement Volume 1. p. 118.
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