Abu Bakr al-Khwarazmi

Abu Bakr Muhammad b. al-'Abbas al-Khwarazmi, the famous poet, called al-Tabarkhazi — his father Khwarazmian, his mother Tabaristani, so a nisba was compounded for him; nephew of Abu Ja'far al-Tabari the historian. One of the great celebrated poets, an imam in language and genealogies, he dwelt in Syria, settling near Aleppo, a name in his age; he has a diwan of epistles and a diwan of verse. ¹

His story with the Sahib Ibn 'Abbad is famous: Ibn 'Abbad made admission of litterateurs conditional on memorising twenty thousand verses of Arab poetry, and Abu Bakr asked, "that much of men's verse, or of women's?" — then left him displeased and lampooned him; when news of his death reached Ibn 'Abbad he improvised verses of regret. ¹