915-965
Poet

Early Life. Abu al-Tayyib Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Ju'fi, known by the nickname al-Mutanabbi (The One Who Claimed Prophethood), is often considered to be the single most important Arabic poet, and certainly he stands above the other writers of his time in historical stature. The classical age of Arabic poetry had passed by the time he began his colorful career. Born of Arab parents in the Iraqi city of Kufah, al-Mutanabbi fled with his family to escape the Qarmati Ismaili schismatics who captured his home city in 924, leading him to spend more than two years with the pastoral Arabs of the Kalb tribe in the Syrian desert to the west. After returning to Kufah in 927, al-Mutanabbi devoted himself exclusively to poetry, thus showing great precociousness from an early age. At first his models were the two great poets of the preceding century, Abu Tammam (804-845) and...