Hassan ibn Thabit

Hassan ibn Thabit was an Arab poet of Yathrib (later Medina), from the Banu Najjar clan of the Khazraj tribe. Born by tradition around 563 CE, he made his name before Islam as a panegyrist (a poet of formal praise) at the courts of the Lakhmid kings at al-Hira (in Iraq) and the Christian Ghassanid Arab rulers of Syria, near Damascus. He is thus described as a "mukhadram" poet, one whose career straddled the pre-Islamic and Islamic eras.

After the Prophet Muhammad's migration (the Hijra, 622 CE) to Medina, Hassan accepted Islam and turned his craft to defending the new community, answering the verse-attacks of its Meccan opponents. He is remembered as "the poet of the Prophet." A tradition reported in the sound hadith collections has the Prophet telling him to satirize his foes, adding that the angel Gabriel (the Holy Spirit) supported him; this is reported in the hadith literature rather than as independently documented event-history.

Tradition also names Hassan among those who spread the slander (ifk) against the Prophet's wife Aisha, for which the slanderers are reported to have received eighty lashes; she is nonetheless said to have valued his earlier defense of the household. These accounts come from sira and hadith and are traditional rather than firmly attested.

He is said to have lived to about 120 years and died in Medina, where he is reported to have been buried in the al-Baqi cemetery. The year is genuinely disputed across early reports (roughly 40, 50, or 54 AH), the latter giving c. 674 CE. Sectarian labels do not apply to his lifetime, which preceded the later divisions of the community.