al-Khwarizmi the poet

أبو بكر الخوارزمي الشاعر

c. 934 CE · 323 AH

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Abbas al-Khwarizmi, the well-known poet, also called al-Tabarkhazi because his father was from Khwarazm and his mother from Tabaristan. He was the son of a sister of Abu Ja'far al-Tabari, author of the History. His birth was in 323, according to al-Tha'alibi in the Yatima. He was one of the great accomplished poets and an imam in language and genealogy. He stayed in Syria for a time and settled in the districts of Aleppo. It is related that he went to al-Sahib Ibn Abbad, and the chamberlain told him that his master had bound himself not to admit any man of letters who could not recite twenty thousand verses of Arab poetry. Al-Khwarizmi asked whether this quantity was of the poetry of men or of the poetry of women. Al-Sahib said, 'This man wants to be Abu Bakr al-Khwarizmi,' and admitted him. He has a diwan of epistles and a diwan of poetry ¹.