by Abu Tammam

In 837 or 838 C.E. Abu Tammam went before the caliph, or Islamic ruler, al-Mu`tasim at Samarra and under his patronage became the most celebrated panegyric or praise poet of his age. By this time the center of power in the Islamic world had moved from Arabia to Syria and then to Iraq, where the Abbasid dynasty built its capital, first in Baghdad and then to the north of Baghdad in Samarra. It was there, in the year 838, that Abu Tammam presented his “Ode on the Conquest of Amorium” to the caliph. This was 34 years after the birth of the poet in 804 in the Syrian town of Jasim to a Christian named Thadus, keeper of a wine shop in nearby Damascus. At some point the poet added Arab tribal elements to...