A literary history of Persia

AL-MUTANABBt'S CONTEMPORARIES 371later culture. The inner history of Arabic poetry ought, indeed, toconclude with him, had not a greater and more lofty genius' steppedforth, who independently gave a new and important development tothe philosophical and speculative turn of thought first introduced byAbu'l-'Atahiya."Abu Firas was killed inbattle in A.D. 968, a year remarkablealso for the birth of one of the great mystical poets of Persia,Abu Sa'fd b. Abi'l-Khayr, the author of a celebratedcollection of quatrains. About the sametime died Abu'I-Farajof Isfahan, the compiler otthat vast thesaurus of Arabic verse known as the Kit&bul-Aghanl or " Book of Songs," a work which intne Cairo edition comprises twenty volumes. Healso was of Arab, and, as it is asserted, of Umayyaddescent, and belonged to the " circle " of Sayfu'd-Dawla. AboutA.D. 07 1 died the poet Ibn Kushdiim, remarkableIbu Kushajim ?' j- i , . , , ...for his Indian descent and the high position whichhe held in the Carmathian 2government and in the;same yearwas born the poet Abu'1-Fath al-Bustf, one of theA U hearliestsU Bu^ti'literary protJgh of the Ghaznawf dynasty.Finally, the last year of the Caliphate of al-Mud'is notable for the birth of two very eminent men, the poetAbuVAla al-Ma'arrf and al-Bfrunf.We come now to the Caliphate of at-Td'f (A.D. 974-991),whose contemporaries were the Samanid Nuh II b. Mansiir(A.D. 976-997) in Khurasan, Qabus b. Washmgirthe Zi y^ rid A-- ( 976-1012) in Tabaristan,'Adudu'd-Dawla in Fars, Kirman, Ahwaz, andPers a a th ' sum SouthernePersia, and in Egypt the Fatimid Anti-Caliph al-'AzIz Abu Mansur Nazar (A.D. 975-996). About the same time there rose into prominenceSabuktagfn (A.D. 976-997), " the true founder of the Ghaznawidynasty," as Stanley Lane-Poole says, whose sonMahmud achieved so mighty a renown as a warrior and champion1*I.e., Abu'l-'Ala al-Ma'arri, b. A.D. 973.See de Goeje's Carmathcs, pp. 151-2.