Ibn Surbaʿr the poet (1) — his full name was ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan (2) ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Faḍl, Abū Manṣūr the scribe, better known as Ibn Surbaʿr.
Niẓām al-Mulk used to say to him: “You are ṣurr al-durr, not ṣurr al-baʿr,” meaning “you are a pouch of pearls, not a pouch of dung.”
He was lampooned by someone who said:
“If, long ago, people cast off your father
and, for his stinginess, called him Surbaʿr, (3)
then you, in disobedience to him, scatter what he had stored away
and call it poetry. (4)”
Ibn al-Jawzī remarked, “This is a blatant injustice, for his verse reaches the height of beauty.” He then cited several fine excerpts, among them:
“Enough, O tales of Nuʿmān and the one who dwells therein —
indeed, talk of the beloved is ever choice. (5)
I question the breeze (6) about you whenever it sings,
for from the direction of your land comes musk (7) and sweet perfume. (8)”
He added: “He had memorised the Qur’an, heard hadith from Ibn Bishrān (9) and others, narrated abundantly, and one day mounted a beast of burden; he and his mother fell from it [at al-Shunayziyya] into a well and died. They were buried at Bāb Arz (11) in Ṣafar of this year.”
Ibn al-Jawzī (12) also said: “I read in the handwriting of Ibn ʿAqīl: ‘Surbaʿr was our neighbour (13) in al-Ruṣāfa, and he used to repudiate heresy.’”