Less original than Badí‘u ’l-Zamán, but far beyond him in variety of learning and copiousness of language, Abú Muḥammad al-Qásim al-Ḥarírí of Baṣra produced in his _Maqámát_ a masterpiece which for eight centuries "has been esteemed as, next to the Koran, the chief treasure of the Arabic tongue." In the Preface to his work he says that the composition of _maqámát_ was suggested to him by "one whose suggestion is a command and whom it is a pleasure to obey." This was the distinguished Persian statesman, Anúshirwán b. Khálid,[618] who afterwards served as Vizier under the Caliph Mustarshid Billáh (1118-1135 A.D.) and Sultán Mas‘úd, the Seljúq (1133-1152 A.D.); but at the time when he made Ḥarírí's acquaintance he was living in retirement at Baṣra and devoting himself to literary studies. Ḥarírí begged to be excused on the score that his abilities were unequal to the task, "for the lame steed cannot run like the strong courser."[619] Finally, however, he yielded to the request of Anúshirwán, and, to quote his own words-- "I composed, in spite of hindrances that I suffered From dullness of capacity and dimness of intellect, And dryness of imagination and distressing anxieties, Fifty Maqámát, which contain serious language and lightsome, And combine refinement with dignity of style, And brilliancies with jewels of eloquence, And beauties of literature with its rarities, Beside verses of the Koran wherewith I adorned them, And choice metaphors, and Arab proverbs that I interspersed, And literary elegancies and grammatical riddles, And decisions based on the (double) meaning of words, And original discourses and highly-wrought orations, And affecting exhortations as well as entertaining jests: The whole of which I have indited as by the tongue of Abú Zayd of Sarúj, The part of narrator being assigned to Harith son of Hammám of Baṣra."[620]