He bore the scars of smallpox, and for forty-five years he ate no meat, adopting what he regarded as a philosophical form of asceticism (1).
He was content and self-restrained. A private endowment covered his expenses, and he would accept nothing from anyone. Had he wished to earn by writing panegyrics, he could have secured great wealth and worldly standing, for his verse stands at the very pinnacle, ranked alongside that of al-Mutanabbī and al-Buḥturī.
He heard a portion of hadith from Yaḥyā ibn Misʿar, who transmitted it from Abū ʿArūbah al-Ḥarrānī.
He studied literature with the Banū Kawthar and the pupils of Ibn Khālawayh (2), and his intellect burned with brilliance.
Among his poorer works is The Epistle of Forgiveness, a single-volume treatise (3) that contains Mazdakite notions and empty verbiage; likewise The Epistle on the Angels (4) and The Epistle of the Birds follow that same pattern. His dīwān, Sparks of the Tinder (5), is well known, and he also composed Luzūm mā lā yalzam (6). In the preservation of vocabulary, he was considered the ultimate authority.
(1) For a fuller version of the account, see Inba al-Ruwat, 1/49; al-Muntazam, 8/184; and Mu jam al-Udaba, 3/125.
(2) This refers to the scholar Abu Ubayd Allah al-Husayn ibn Ahmad al-Hamadhani, a grammarian and lexicographer who died in 370 AH. Biographical notices appear in: Inba al-Ruwat, 1/324; Bughyat al-Wu at, 1/529; Wafayat al-Ayan, 2/178-179; al-Fihrist, p. 84; Yatimat al-Dahr, 1/107-108; Mu jam al-Udaba, 9/200-205; Nuzhat al-Alba, 311-312; A lam al-Nubala, 4/54-56; Tabaqat Ibn Qadi Shuhba, 1/317-319; Mir at al-Jinan, 2/394; al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 11/297; al-Nujum al-Zahira, 4/139; Talkhis Ibn Maktum, p. 62.
(3) He addressed it to Shaykh Ali ibn Mansur al-Halabi, known as Ibn al-Qarih, in reply to a letter the latter had sent him.
(4) This work was edited and annotated by the eminent scholar Muhammad Salim al-Jundi, a member of the Arab Academy of Damascus.
(5) This is a poetic dīwan of more than three thousand verses; it was published, together with several commentaries by leading linguists and litterateurs, under the auspices of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and National Guidance in 1945, and prepared for the press by a committee of professors.
(6) It is also known as the Luzumiyyat; in his introduction the author explains the rhymes and their constraints, as well as the meaning of “binding oneself to what is not strictly required.” The work is widely available in print.