SOURCE: Nicholson, Reynold A. “Poetry, Literature, and Science in the 'Abbásid Period.” In A Literary History of the Arabs, pp. 285-364. Surrey, England: Curzon Press, 1993.

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1907, Nicholson discusses al-Harīrī's heroic character Abū Zayd.

Less original than Badí‘u 'l-Zamán, but far beyond him in variety of learning and copiousness of language, Abú Muḥammad al-Qásim al-Harírí of Baṣra produced in his Maqámát a masterpiece which for eight centuries “has been esteemed as, next to the Koran, the chief treasure of the Arabic tongue.” In the Preface to his work he says that the composition of maqámát was suggested to him by “one whose suggestion is a command and whom it is a pleasure to obey.” This was the distinguished Persian statesman, Anúshirwán b. Khálid,¹ who afterwards served as...