Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn, better known as Nāṣih al-Dīn al-Arrajānī, a Shāfiʿī.
He transmitted the fascicle entitled “Luwayn” (1) from Abū Bakr ibn Mājah (2).
Those who narrated from him include Abū Muḥammad ibn al-Khashshāb, Manūjhar ibn Turkānshāh, the secretary Yaḥyā ibn Ziyāda, and others.
He also acted as deputy judge in ʿAskar Mukram (3).
What has been preserved of his poetry is not even a tenth of what he composed, although he reached the highest level of poetic craftsmanship. I have quoted a selection of it in my History of Islam (4).
He died in Tustar, in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 544 AH.
Arrajān is pronounced with a doubled rāʾ; the author of al-Ṣiḥāḥ recorded it that way, whereas al-Mutanabbī used it with a single, vocalized rāʾ in his verse (5). It is a small town in the district of Ahwāz.
He lived for eighty-four years.
(1) Al-Hafiz Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Sulayman b. Habib al-Asadi (d. 246 AH), better known as “Luwayn.” His biography appeared in volume 11, no. 136.
(2) The scholar who died in 481 AH; he alone possessed the fascicle (juzʾ) of Luwayn. His biography appeared in volume 18, no. 302.
(3) A well-known locality in the province of Khuzistan; cf. Muʿjam al-Buldan 4/123 and Wafayat al-Aʿyan 1/155.
(4) His collected poems (Diwan) were compiled by his son; most of the pieces are long panegyrics to the Saljuqs and their officials. The work was printed in Beirut in 1307 AH, edited by Ahmad ʿAbbas al-Azhari, and again in 1317 AH by ʿAbd al-Basit al-Ansi. A manuscript transmission also exists; see Brockelmann, Geschichte 5/34.
(5) Regarding the verse: “Arjan, O steeds, for it is my resolve that shatters the tough lance-wood (al-washij),” i.e. “Turn, O steeds, toward Arjan; al-washij is the tree from which spear-shafts are made.” The line is taken from a qasida praising Abu al-Fadl Muhammad b. al-ʿAmid, whose opening hemistich reads: “Bada hawaka sabartu am lam tasbira / wa-bakaaka in lam yajri damʿuka aw jara.” See Diwan al-Mutanabbi, ed. ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Barquqi, 2/264–280.