Al Mutanabbi
Abu al Tayib Ahmad ibn Hussayn, better known as Al Mutanabbi (915 – 965) was the poetic voice of Medieval Arab chivalry and the most influential and prominent Arab poet. Most of his work dealt with chivalric and knightly themes, usually in the form of odes to patrons. However, he was also an egomaniac who managed to turn a significant portion of his panegyrics into odes to himself, his talent, his chivalry, and his courage.
From early on, he exhibited a precocious talent for verse that won him a scholarship. During his childhood, the Qarmatians, a heretical cult that combined Zoroastrianism and Islam, began despoiling the Middle East, and he joined them in his teens. Claiming to be a Nabi, or prophet, at age 17 he led a Qarmatian uprising in Syria. The rebellion was suppressed and its teenaged leader was captured and imprisoned until he recanted two years later. The Nabi claim earned him the derisory nickname Al Mutanabbi, or “would-be prophet”, by which he is known to history.
After he was set free in 935, he became a wandering poet, touring the region’s courts and composing poems in praise of rulers and powerful men in exchange for patronage. Poems praising patrons in exchange for patronage have a long history that cuts across cultures. From ancient Sumer through ancient Greece and Persia, and among the Anglo Saxons, Arabs, Vikings and others, bards and poets sang and recited for their supper. But when they sought richer fare, the surest ticket was to compose something that flattered a wealthy and powerful figure.
Al Mutanabbi was often handsomely rewarded with gifts of cash, but his greatest hope was to get appointed a governor. However, while impressive as a poet, but did not impress as a potential governor: his personality was prickly, and his pride was often off putting. Such traits, combined with the dramatics frequently accompanying creative genius, gave his patrons pause, and his ambitions of ruling a province were never fulfilled.
When not praising, Al Mutanabbi had a propensity to compose devastating verse to insult those who rubbed him wrong – typically rival courtiers competing for a patron’s attention, but sometimes patrons who failed to reward Al Mutanabbi as richly as he thought he deserved. Such insulting poetry got him killed in 965, when one of the victims of his verse waylaid him near Baghdad. Outnumbered, he sought to flee, but when the pursuers derisively recited some of Al Mutanabbi’s bold lines boasting of his prowess, chivalry, and courage, the poet was shamed into turning around to live up to his verse, and was killed in the ensuing fight.
My artistry can be seen by the blind – and my words can be heard by the deaf,
The steed, the night, and the desert know me – and the sword, spear, paper and pen.
Al Mutanabbi.