Al-Buhturi

Abu Ubada al-Walid ibn Ubayd Allah al-Buhturi (c. 821-897 CE / 206-284 AH) was one of the foremost Arabic poets of the Abbasid age. He was born at Manbij in northern Syria, between Aleppo and the Euphrates, into the Tayy, an old Arab tribe (his clan, the Buhturids, gave him his name).

As a young man he is reported to have sought out the celebrated poet Abu Tammam, himself a Tayyi, at Homs; biographical tradition holds that Abu Tammam encouraged his talent and helped secure him a pension, and the two are remembered together as the great practitioners of badi, the "new," densely figurative rhetorical style then transforming Arabic verse. Al-Buhturi went on to the Abbasid court, gaining favour under the caliph al-Mutawakkil (reigned 847-861), whose seat was the new capital of Samarra, and he kept court patrons through later reigns while also residing in Baghdad.

Most of his large surviving body of poetry consists of panegyric (madih), praise-odes prized for their vivid description and musical cadence; he is often judged to have a more "natural" touch than the more ornate Abu Tammam, though such comparisons are matters of critical taste rather than settled fact. His best-known poem is the ode on the ruined palace-arch of the Persian kings at Ctesiphon (the "Iwan Kisra"), a meditation on the rise and fall of empires. He also edited his own diwan (collected verse) and compiled a Hamasa, an anthology of older Arabic poetry. He died, by most accounts, back in his native Manbij.