and associated with scholars; he was famed for his refinement, pleasant manners, and noble spirit. Aḥmad ibn Abī Ṭāhir and others transmitted fully-chained reports from him.
Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān (1) said: “He had committed to memory fourteen (2) thousand rajaz-poems composed by the Arabs, not counting the longer odes, shorter pieces, and other poetic forms.”
People used to say: “Among the tribe of Ṭayy there are three exemplars: Ḥātim for his generosity, Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī (3) for his asceticism, and Abū Tammām for his poetry.”
I say: In his era many poets were active. The most celebrated of them included Abū al-Shīṣ (4), Diʿbil ibn ʿAlī, and Ibn Abī Fannan (5); yet Abū Tammām was foremost among them in piety, learning, and character.
Of his tender verse are the lines:
O companion of bounty, fountainhead of munificence,
the very best of those who embrace the craft of verse!
Would that your fever were mine and the reward were yours,
so you would feel no pain while I lay stricken.
Al-Khaṭīb (9) relates from Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArfah that Abū Tammām died in the year 228 AH, and the same is reported by Ibn Jarīr (10). Others maintained that he passed away in 231 AH (11), while yet another opinion places his death in 232 AH (12)—Allah knows best.
(1) Wafayāt al-Aʿyān, vol. 2, p. 12.
(2) In al-Nāsikh and Wafayāt al-Aʿyān the number is fourteen.
(3) He is Dāwūd ibn Nuṣayr al-Ṭāʾī al-Kūfī, Abū Sulaymān—an imam and jurist, a model ascetic, one of the awliyāʾ (saints) and a leading figure in Sufism. He died in 165 AH. Cf. Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ, vol. 7, p. 335; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, vol. 7, p. 422.
(4) He is Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Razīn al-Khuzāʿī, nephew of Duʿball, a poet with a printed dīwān from Kufa whose fame was eclipsed by his contemporaries Sarīʿ al-Ghawānī and Abū Nuwās. He was killed by the servant of ʿUqba ibn Jaʿfar at ar-Raqqa in 196 AH. Cf. Ṭabaqāt al-Shuʿarāʾ by Ibn al-Muʿtazz, p. 72; al-Aʿlām, vol. 7, p. 154.
(5) Abū ʿAbdullāh Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ, known as al-Mufallaq—a published poet—attached himself to Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Ṭāhir and composed panegyrics in his honour. Cf. Ṭabaqāt ibn al-Muʿtazz, p. 396.
(6) Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Dimashq, vol. 4, p. 80; Tārīkh Baghdad, vol. 8, p. 252.
(7) In both Tārīkh Baghdad and Ibn ʿAsākir the reading is “yā tu’m.”
(8) In Tārīkh Baghdad and Ibn ʿAsākir it appears as “habūtu.”
(9) Tārīkh Baghdad, vol. 8, p. 252.
(10) Taʾrīkh al-Ṭabarī, vol. 9, p. 124.
(11) Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, vol. 11, p. 67.
(12) As stated by Makhlad al-Mawṣilī, in Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, vol. 11, p. 67.