Abu Nuwas once said, “I did not compose a single poem until I had memorised the verse of sixty women—among them al-Khansaʾ and Layla—so what do you think I did with the men?”

Yaʿqub ibn al-Sikkīt said, “If you have mastered the poetry of Imruʾ al-Qays and al-Aʿshā among the pre-Islamic poets, of Jarīr and al-Farazdaq among the early Muslims, and of Abu Nuwas among the moderns, that will suffice you.”

More than one scholar praised him; among them were al-Asmaʿī, al-Jāḥiẓ, and al-Naẓẓām.

Abu ʿAmr al-Shaybānī remarked, “Had Abu Nuwas not spoiled his poetry with the filth he inserted into it, we would have taken it as authoritative.” He was referring to the verses he composed on wine and on murdān (beardless youths)—toward whom he was inclined—and other such themes well known in his work.

A group of poets once gathered in the presence of the caliph al-Maʾmūn. They were asked:

“Which of you wrote the line:
When he had sipped it and we halted, we seemed to see
A moon upon the earth ascending toward a star (1)?”

They answered, “Abu Nuwas.”

He asked, “And which of you wrote:
When it slips beneath a youth’s palate,
It calls his cares to depart from his heart (2)?”

They replied, “Abu Nuwas.”

He asked, “And which of you wrote:
It coursed through their joints
As healing courses through disease (3)?”

Again they replied, “Abu Nuwas.”

Al-Maʾmūn then said, “He is the most gifted among you.”

Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said to Ibn Manādhir, “How truly poetic is your graceful companion Abu Nuwas when he says:

O moon I glimpsed at a funeral rite,
Lamenting grief among his peers;
The mourning brought him forth to me unwillingly,
Despite the lord of the house and the guards;
He weeps, scattering pearls from his eyes,
And strikes roses with palms the colour of jujube.”