Dīwān

Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi (915–965) is the most quoted poet in Arabic. Born in Kufa, he was jailed as a young man, the story goes, for claiming to be a prophet, which gave him his name ('the would-be prophet'). His finest poems were written at the court of Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo, celebrating the prince's wars against Byzantium; he later praised and then satirised Kafur, ruler of Egypt, and was killed on the road near Baghdad in 965.

His lines on ambition, pride and fate became proverbs. The library holds hundreds of his poems from Wikisource and al-Barquqi's commentary on his diwan.