that runs its course, by the revolving sphere, and by the night and the day; truly the unbeliever is exposed to perils. Go forth upon your path(1) and follow the footsteps of the messengers who came before you, for through you Allah will crush anyone who tampers with His religion or strays from His way.

This is yet another sign of his abandonment by Allah and of the profusion of his ravings in what he styled a Qur’an. Had he confined himself to the rhymes of praise and satire, he would have stood among the finest poets and the most eloquent rhetoricians; but, out of ignorance and mental short-sightedness, he aspired to fashion something resembling the speech of the Lord of earth and heaven—a speech to which nothing in existence can be likened, neither in His Essence nor in His attributes, deeds, or words. Exalted is Allah, Creator of all things.

When his affair became notorious in the land of al-Samāwah and a group of simpletons gathered around him, the deputy governor of Ḥimṣ acting for the Banū Ikhshīd—namely the amir Luʾluʾ, may Allah brighten his face—marched against him, scattered his followers, captured him(2), and imprisoned him for a long stretch. In captivity he fell gravely ill and was on the verge of death; Luʾluʾ therefore had him brought, compelled him to recant, and drew up a document which he signed, confessing the falsity of his claim and repenting of it, returning to the religion of Islam. He was then released. Afterwards, whenever the matter was raised he would deny it if denial was possible; otherwise he would offer excuses and feel ashamed. He was henceforth branded with a single epithet(3) that exposed the lie of his imposture—al-Mutanabbī, “the would-be prophet”—a name that signals falsehood. Praise be to Allah.

One satirist lampooned him, saying:
‘What merit has a poet who begs for favour
From people morning and night?
Once he hawked water in Kūfah,
And later he hawked the very water of his face.’

Al-Mutanabbī has a celebrated dīwān containing polished poems and meanings that had no precedent—innovations that led the way. Among the modern poets he is as Imruʾ al-Qays was among the ancients. According to those skilled in such matters, I possess a copy written in his own hand, dating from early in his career.

Abu’l-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, in his al-Munṭaẓam, quoted a number of fine passages from the dīwān that pleased him, and so did the great ḥāfiẓ Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir, the leading scholar of his region and the memoriser of his time.

The piece Sheikh Abu’l-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī especially admired reads:
‘Rare is the grief whose wound is those wide, dark eyes—
A wasting grief that slew the lovers of old.
Let whoever will look at me; my very appearance
Is warning enough to any who think love easy.
Her love has coursed through my joints like blood,
So every concern I have is now a concern for her.
The sickness has spared not a single hair upon my body:
There is no strand of it but bears its mark.’