and Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥamdūn al-Sulamī. In 453 AH he convened a session in which he transmitted material from al-Sarrāj, Muḥammad ibn Shādhil, Ibn Khuzaymah, ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Naṣrabādhī, Abū ʿAmr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥayrī, Abū al-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq al-Sarakhsī, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Warrāq, ʿAbbās ibn Sahl, and others. He dictated that gathering in Ramaḍān 378 AH, on the very nights in which he passed away—may Allah have mercy upon him.

277 – The Two Khalidis: Abū Bakr Muḥammad and Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd*
These talented poet-brothers—Abū Bakr Muḥammad and Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd, the sons of Hāshim ibn Waʿkah (1) ibn ʿArām ibn ʿUthmān ibn Bilāl—were Mosulites known as the Khalidis, originally from the village of al-Khalidiyya (2).

They were like two racehorses running neck-and-neck in sharp intelligence and in the speed and polish of their verse, sometimes collaborating on a single ode. Muḥammad was the elder. He came to Damascus in the entourage of Sayf al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān. Both brothers were among the emir’s favoured poets; they produced many joint compositions, and Sarī al-Raffāʾ (3) used to lampoon them, while they in turn satirised him.

A line of Muḥammad’s reads:
“The full moon veils itself with a mantle of white cloud—
hovering there between bashful reserve and open display.”