He was born in Ahwaz and grew up in Basra.
He heard hadith from Ḥammād ibn Salamah and a number of others.
He recited the Qur’an before Ya‘qūb, and he studied Arabic with Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī and others.
He composed panegyrics for caliphs and viziers, and his poetry reached such a pinnacle that his own teacher Abū ‘Ubaydah said of him, “Abū Nuwās is to the moderns what Imru’ al-Qays was to the ancients.”
It was said he was given this nickname because of two braids that swung over his shoulders.
He belonged to the client-family of al-Jarrāḥ al-Ḥakamī, the commander of the fighters in the frontier raids, and he is the poet who said:
“Glory be to the Lord of Dominion! What a night it was,
whose dawn delivered us to the Day of Standing.
If an eye so much as guessed the treasure stored for the Return,
it would never dare to blink.” (1)
And he also said:
“Take note: every living soul will perish—and the child of the perished as well,
and even the nobly born is deeply rooted among the doomed.
If a discerning man would test this world, it would lay bare for him
an enemy garbed in the clothes of a friend.” (2)
Abū Nuwās left behind many witty anecdotes and exquisite poems on love and wine, and he enjoyed high favor in the days of Hārūn al-Rashīd and al-Amīn.
He died in 195 or 196 AH; another report puts his death in 198 AH—may Allah pardon him.