Among his verses:
Do you not see the pool’s uneasy rippling, as though
The jewelled clasps of girdles were glinting before your eyes?
Its surface shimmers while sun-beams sport upon its water;
It quivers and flutters like a lover’s trembling heart (1).

Thus, Ibn al-Khayyāt the Damascene is Aḥmad, son of Saniʿ al-Dawla Abū al-Katāʾib the scribe, son of ʿAlī. He was originally from Tripoli. Abū ʿAbd Allāh served as secretary in Ḥamāh to Abū al-Fawāris ibn Mānk, remaining in his employ for a time. He later gained fame for his poetry, composing panegyrics for kings and princes. In Aleppo he met the emir Abū al-Fityān ibn Ḥayyūs, from whom he narrated, as well as from al-Sābiq Muḥammad ibn al-Khaḍir ibn Abī Mahzūl al-Maʿarrī, Ḥassān ibn al-Ḥubbāb, Abū Naṣr ibn al-Khayṣī, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Duwayda.

Transmitters from him include Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭulayṭulī and the poet Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Qaysarānī, who studied under him.

Al-Silafī said: “Ibn al-Khayyāt was the poet of Syria.”

Abū al-Fawāris Najāʾ ibn Ismāʿīl al-ʿUmarī told me in Damascus in the year 510 AH—himself an accomplished poet—“In his day Ibn al-Khayyāt was, beyond dispute, the most gifted of the Syrian poets.”

Al-Silafī also stated: “I selected a graceful volume from his poetry and heard it directly from him.”

Ibn al-Khayyāt recounted: “When I was still a youth I visited the emir Ibn Ḥayyūs in Aleppo—he was already advanced in age—and I recited to him these lines of mine:
Nothing remains with me that could be sold for a single dirham; / Let your own eye suffice to tell you of my condition (2)."