al-Raghib al-Isfahani in the orbit of al-Sahib Ibn Abbad's circle, about 385

In his literary anthologies al-Raghib al-Isfahani alludes repeatedly to contemporaries who can be identified as members of the circle of the Buyid vizier al-Sahib Ibn Abbad (d. 385/995), showing that he lived in the age of that salon which drew the men of letters of Persia and Iraq. There is no sound testimony that al-Raghib himself attended the circle at Rayy or ever left his native Isfahan: he stands as a littérateur who received the salon's news and books, not one of its sitters ¹.

The Muhadarat al-udaba' gives pride of place to the poetry of al-Mutanabbi and al-Sharif al-Radi and to Ibn Abbad's prose and verse alongside the poets and prose-writers of every age — a mirror of the literary store that issued from the vizier's house ¹.