Often reckoned the greatest of all Arabic poets, a proud and dazzling panegyrist whose verses became proverbs across the Arab world.
Life
Al-Mutanabbi (915–965), born in Kufa, rose through the courts of the age — most famously that of Sayf al-Dawla of Aleppo — composing odes of extraordinary power, ambition, and pride. His nickname ("the would-be prophet") came from a rebellious episode of his youth. Restless and boastful, he quarreled with patrons and was killed by bandits on the road. His lines on courage, fate, and glory are among the most quoted in the Arabic language, and he is widely held to be the supreme poet of classical Arabic — his dazzling command of the language unmatched before or since.