Al-Samʿānī said, “I heard more than one person relate that al-Abiwardī would say in his prayer, ‘O Allah, grant me dominion over the eastern and western reaches of the earth.’

I add: He was saturated with learning, renowned for his religion and scrupulousness; yet he was vain, enamored of himself, and his thirst for eminence was his undoing. Handsome, elegantly dressed, and imposing in appearance, he delighted in boasting and used to sign his name ‘al-ʿAbshamī al-Muʿāwī.’

It is said that he once sent a petition to the caliph al-Mustazhir billāh, signing it, “the servant al-Muʿāwī.”(1) Al-Mustazhir scratched out the mīm, so that it read “al-ʿāwī” (“the howler”), and returned the paper to him.

Ḥammād al-Ḥarrānī stated, “I heard al-Silafī say, ‘By Allah, al-Abiwardī was a man of religion, goodness, uprightness, and reliability.’ He told me, ‘By Allah, I have never slept in a house that contained the Book of Allah or a hadith of the Messenger of Allah, out of reverence for them, lest I behave in any way that is forbidden.’”

Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Faqīh recited to us; Jaʿfar informed us; al-Silafī recited to us; and al-Abiwardī composed for himself:

A graceful fawn sped to visit me—
a full moon flashing across the night’s dark page.
I lingered, chatting softly with him,
while the moon itself bent close to hear my words.
In ardor I pressed my cheek to his,
till meadow and stream flowed into one embrace.(2)

ʿAbd al-Ghāfir says in al-Siyāq: “The pride of the Arabs, Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Abiwardī al-Kūfanī,(3) the eminent man of letters, scribe, and genealogist, one of the glories of the age,”