al-waraʿ (Scrupulous Piety); al-waṣāyā (Testaments); al-waqf wal-ibtidāʾ (Pausing and Beginning); al-wajal (Awe); al-yaqīn (Certainty).

193 – The astrologer* Abū ʿAbd Allāh Hārūn ibn ʿAlī ibn Yaḥyā

A man of letters and transmitter of historical reports, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Hārūn ibn ʿAlī ibn Yaḥyā ibn Abī Manṣūr ibn al-Munajjim, the Baghdadi, served as a court companion (nadīm).

He authored the book al-Bāriʿ fī al-shuʿarāʾ al-muwalladīn (The Outstanding Work on the Neo-Arab Poets). He began with Bashshār and concluded with Ibn al-Zayyāt, covering one hundred and sixty poets in all. Al-ʿImād in his al-Kharīda, along with al-Ḥaẓīrī, al-Bākharzī, and al-Thaʿālibī, followed his model and expanded upon it.

He also wrote al-nisāʾ wa mā fīhinna (Women and What Pertains to Them) (1), among other works.

He came from a household renowned for belles-lettres and for serving as convivial companions (2) to the caliphs.

He died in 288 AH, his life having been short.

His father, Abū al-Ḥasan, was himself a cultured poet.

His grandfather was an astrologer favored by al-Maʾmūn and died in Aleppo in the year thirteen and two hundred AH (213 AH).

Their forebear Abū Manṣūr had been the astrologer of Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr; he was a wretched Zoroastrian. His son Yaḥyā accepted Islam at the hand of al-Maʾmūn and became the Caliph’s client, boon-companion, and intimate.