bin Mirdas who lampooned the Prophet and had “his tongue cut out” i.e. received a double share of booty from Ali.  In the days of Caliph Omar we have Alkamah bin Olatha followed by Jamil bin Ma’mar of the Banu Ozrah (ob.  A.H. 82), who loved Azza.  Then came Al-Kuthayyir (the dwarf, ironice), the lover of Buthaynah, “who was so lean that birds might be cut to bits with her bones :”  the latter was also a poetess (Ibn Khall. i. 87), like Hind bint al-Nu’man who made herself so disagreeable to Al-Hajjaj (ob.  A.H. 95) Jarir al-Khatafah, the noblest of the Islami poets in the first century, is noticed at full length by Ibn Khallikan (i. 294) together with his rival in poetry and debauchery, Abu Firas Hammam or Homaym bin Ghalib al-Farazdak, the Tamimi, the Ommiade poet “without whose verse half Arabic would be lost:"[FN#447] he exchanged satires with Jarir and died forty days before him (A.H. 110).  Another contemporary, forming the poetical triumvirate of the period, was the debauched Christian poet Al-Akhtal al-Taghlibi.  They were followed by Al-Ahwas al-Ansari whose witty lampoons banished him to Dahlak Island in the Red Sea (ob.  A.H. 179 = 795); by Bashshar ibn Burd and by Yunus ibn Habib (ob.  A.H. 182).

The well known names of the Harun-cycle are Al-Asma’i, rhetorician and poet, whose epic with Antar for hero is not forgotten (ob.  A.H. 2I6); Isaac of Mosul (Ishak bin Ibrahim of Persian origin); Al-’Utbi “the Poet” (ob.  A.H. 228); Abu al-Abbas al-Rakashi; Abu al-Atahiyah, the lover of Otbah; Muslim bin al-Walid al-Ansari; Abu Tammam of Tay, compiler of the Hamasah (ob.  A.H. 230), “a Muwallad of the first class” (says Ibn Khallikan i. 392); the famous or infamous Abu Nowas, Abu Mus’ab (Ahmad ibn Ali) who died in A.H. 242; the satirist Dibil al-Khuzai (ob.  A.H. 246) and a host of others quos nunc perscribere longum est.  They were followed by Al-Bohtori “the Poet” (ob.  A.H. 286); the royal author Abdullah ibn al-Mu’tazz (ob.  A.H. 315); Ibn Abbad the Sahib (ob.  A.H. 334); Mansur al-Hallaj the martyred Sufi; the Sahib ibn Abbad, Abu Faras al-Hamdani (ob.  A.H. 357); Al-Nami (ob.  A.H. 399) who had many encounters with that model Chauvinist Al-Mutanabbi, nicknamed Al-Mutanabbih (the “wide awake"), killed A.H. 354; Al-Manazi of Manazjird (ob. 427); Al-Tughrai author of the Lamiyat al-’Ajam (ob.  A.H. 375); Al-Hariri the model rhetorician (ob.  A.H. 516); Al-Hajiri al-Irbili, of Arbela (ob.  A.H. 632); Baha al-Din al-Sinjari (ob.  A.H. 622); Al-Katib or the Scribe (ob.  A.H. 656); Abdun al-Andalusi the Spaniard (our xiith century) and about the same time Al-Nawaji, author of the Halbat al-Kumayt or"Race course of the Bay horse”—­poetical slang for wine.[FN#448]

Of the third category, the pieces d’occasion, little need be said:  I may refer readers to my notes on the doggrels in vol. ii. 34, 35, 56, 179, 182, 186 and 261; in vol. v. 55 and in vol. viii. 50.