Abu Ya'qub Ishaq ibn Hassan al-Khuraymi

Abu Ya'qub Ishaq ibn Hassan al-Khuraymi was an Arab poet of the early Abbasid court, a client of the Banu Khuraym, who died probably under al-Ma'mun about 206/821. He wrote panegyrics and elegies for his patrons, and during the civil war between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun he sided with al-Amin.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), signed Ch. Pellat, notes that his family was of noble Sogdian origin, which he sometimes mentions with pride. His nisba al-Khuraymi, not al-Khuzaymi, comes from his status as a client (mawla) of the Banu Khuraym b. 'Amir and his son 'Uthman, not directly from Khuraym al-Na'im as most of his biographers say. He seems to have lived in Mesopotamia, where he frequented dissolute poets such as Hammad 'Ajrad and Mut' b. Iyas, and finally in Baghdad. ¹

In Baghdad he was close to the entourage of al-Rashid, especially the Barmakids Yahya, al-Fadl and Ja'far, and their secretaries al-Hasan b. Babbah al-Balkhi and Muhammad b. Mansur b. Ziyad. In the conflict between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun he took the side of the former, and during the siege of Baghdad he composed a long qasida describing the destruction of the city and begging al-Ma'mun to end the fratricidal war. ²

The article judges his work more important than the surviving fragments suggest. He is known even in the Maghrib. He wrote satires, some of which were sung by 'Allawayh, but he is above all a poet of panegyric (chosen for self-interest) and of dirges for people he was close to, especially Muhammad b. Mansur b. Ziyad and members of Khuraym's family. After he lost his second eye (he had been one-eyed already and is sometimes called al-A'war), he wrote moving verses on his loss. Critics admit his talent, and say that his poetry was especially enjoyed by the secretaries of the bureaux, probably because of his non-Arab origin, though he seems to have played no role among the Shu'ubiyya. ²