Al-Mutanabb¯ı (meaning “the would-be prophet”)
was born in the city of Kufa to a Yemenite father.
Most of his poems were flattering panegyrics, distinguished
by their complex style and imagery and
written for a succession of powerful patrons. The
poems were extremely popular in al-Mutanabb¯ı’s
time.
The poet was educated in a Shi‘ite Muslim
school and may have had some Greek education as
well. As a young man in the 930s, he passed several
years among the Bedauin in Syria, promoting a revolutionary
new religion. The miracles he claimed to
perform led to his nickname, al-Mutanabb¯ı, which
remained with him all his life. Freed in 937 after a
four-year jail term for banditry, he decided to confine
his career to poetry and began a lifelong struggle
to find patrons who would support him. His
greatest success was a nine-year stay at the court
of the Hamdanid ruler Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo,
starting around 948. His panegyrics to Sayf were
noted for their vivid battle scenes as well as for his
tendency to address the ruler as a beloved, as he
does in the poem “To Sayf al-Dawla on His Recovery
from an Illness.”
Like other poets at the court, al-Mutanabb¯ı
would accompany Sayf al-Dawla on many of his
jihad (holy war) campaigns against the Christian
Byzantine empire and record their events in verse.
One poem, “A Congratulatory Ode on the Occasion
of the Feast of Sacrifices,” proclaims:
Every man has a habit to which he dedicates
his time, and the habit of Sayf
al-Dawla is thrusting at the enemy
. . .
Many an arrogant man, who knew not God
for a moment, has seen his sword in his
hand and promptly professed the faith.
After falling from Sayf ’s grace, al-Mutanabb¯ı
traveled to Cairo, where he managed to antagonize
the famous regent Kafur by brutally satirizing
the former slave in poems that destroyed the ruler’s
historical reputation.He was more successful in Persia,
until he was ambushed by relatives of one of his
satirical victims.Reminded of his celebrated lines: “I
am known to night and horses and the desert, to
sword and lance, to parchment and pen,” the poet
unsheathed his sword and was promptly killed.
Al-Mutanabb¯ı’s fame spread to Andalusia in
Spain and to Persia, where he is said to have influenced
the new school of Persian poetry, especially
its greatest master, RUMI. In Arabic literary criticism
he is considered a champion of ethnic Arabs
in the Muslim world, and he remains a favorite
among modern Arabic nationalists.
English Versions of Works by al-Mutanabb¯ı
The Diwan of Abu Tayyib Ahmad ibn al Husain al Mutannabi.
Translated by Arthur Wormholdt. Oskaloosa,
Iowa:William Penn College, 1995.
Poems of al-Mutanabbi. Translated by A. J. Arberry.
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press,
1967.
A Work about al-Mutanabb¯ı
Hamori, Andras. The Composition of Mutanabb¯ı’s
Panegyrics to Sayf al-Dawla. New York: E. J. Brill,
1992.