ABSTRACT
Many modern scholars who view Ibn Abı¯ T ˙ a¯hir primarily as a historian and
anthologist altogether ignore his poetic output. In a 1996 Encyclopaedia Iranica
article, for instance, C. E. Bosworth does not even mention Ibn Abı¯ T ˙ a¯hir’s verse
in spite of the fact that one of his key references, a Persian encyclopedia entry, is
explicit about it and catalogs it.1 Indeed, the earliest extant notice devoted to Ibn
Abı¯ T ˙ a¯hir – one page long in the published version – is in the T
˙ abaqa¯t al-shu
( ara¯
)
al-muh ˙ dathı¯n [Classes of modern poets] of Ibn al-Mu
( tazz (d. 296/908).2 Ibn
al-Mu ( tazz, whose ill-fated caliphate lasted just one day, was a fine poet, perceptive
critic, and was also the author of the Kita¯b al-Badı¯ ( [Book of novel expression], the
first work to address expression(s) of the “modern,” the “new” and the “novel.”
