Rhymed prose (_saj‘_) long retained the religious associations which it possessed in Pre-islamic times and which were consecrated, for all Moslems, by its use in the Koran. About the middle of the ninth century it began to appear in the public sermons (_khuṭab_, sing. _khuṭba_) of the Caliphs and their viceroys, and it was still further developed by professional preachers, like Ibn Nubáta († 984 A.D.), and by official secretaries, like Ibráhím b. Hilál al-Ṣábí († 994 A.D.). Henceforth rhyme becomes a distinctive and almost indispensable feature of rhetorical prose. [Sidenote: Badí‘u ’l-Zamán al-Hamadhání († 1007 A.D.).] The credit of inventing, or at any rate of making popular, a new and remarkable form of composition in this style belongs to al-Hamadhání († 1007 A.D.), on whom posterity conferred the title _Badí‘u ’l-Zamán_, _i.e._, 'the Wonder of the Age.' Born in Hamadhán (Ecbatana), he left his native town as a young man and travelled through the greater part of Persia, living by his wits and astonishing all whom he met by his talent for improvisation. His _Maqámát_ may be called a romance or literary Bohemianism. In the _maqáma_ we find some approach to the dramatic style, which has never been cultivated by the Semites.[616] Hamadhání imagined as his hero a witty, unscrupulous vagabond journeying from place to place and supporting himself by the presents which his impromptu displays of rhetoric, poetry, and learning seldom failed to draw from an admiring audience. The second character is the _ráwí_ or narrator, "who should be continually meeting with the other, should relate his adventures, and repeat his excellent compositions."[617] The _Maqámát_ of Hamadhání became the model for this kind of writing, and the types which he created survive unaltered in the more elaborate work of his successors. Each _maqáma_ forms an independent whole, so that the complete series may be regarded as a novel consisting of detached episodes in the hero's life, a medley of prose and verse in which the story is nothing, the style everything. [Sidenote: Ḥarírí (1054-1122 A.D.).]