the Maqamat at the suggestion of Anwushirwan, until I later saw in Cairo a copy written in the author’s own hand in which he records that he composed them for the vizier Jalal al-Din Abu ‘Ali ibn Sadaqah, vizier of al-Mustarshid. This report is the more reliable, for it rests on the author’s autograph.

In The History of the Grammarians (1) al-Qifti relates that Abu Zayd al-Sarujī’s name was Mutahhar ibn Sallar. A linguist from Basra, he kept company with al-Hariri, studied under him, and died after the year 540 AH. Abu al-Fath al-Mandaʾī heard from him the Mulḥa, which he in turn had heard directly from al-Hariri.

It is also said that al-Hariri first composed forty Maqamat and brought them to Baghdad. Some men of letters declared, “These belong to a Maghribi who died in Basra, and al-Hariri has appropriated them.” The vizier asked al-Hariri what his craft was. “Letters,” he replied. The vizier thereupon required him to draft an epistle on a particular incident he specified. Al-Hariri withdrew and sat for some time, but no inspiration came to him for what he might write, so he rose in embarrassment.

‘Ali ibn Aflah the poet said:
An aged shaykh of ours from Rabi‘at al-Faras
who plucks his beard’s tuft in a fit of craze—
God made him eloquent at al-Mashān, even as
He struck him dumb in the midst of the dīwān.

He used to claim descent from Rabi‘at al-Faras and would play with his beard. When he returned to his home town he completed the number to fifty, dispatched them, and excused his earlier muteness as awe (2).

Another view holds that he disliked delivering the maqāmah in Baghdad, so he pretended ignorance and kissed a small child on the head,