Affiliation

Arabic poet, critic and rhetorician: 'the Hassan of India'

Biography

Born in Bilgram in India, he mastered grammar, philology and verse and was called 'the Hassan of India'; his seven Arabic diwans run to some ten thousand lines and include the long nun-rhymed ode Mir'at al-Jamal. In Subhat al-Marjan fi Athar Hindustan he carried figures of Indian poetics over into Arabic rhetoric, and in Shifa' al-'Alil he set out his criticisms of al-Mutanabbi's poetry.