d 1120; al-Busiri, died
1279,--author of the 'Burda,' poem in praise of Muhammad: but
al-Mutanabbi, died 965, alone deserves special mention. The
"Prophet-pretender"--for such his name signifies--has been called by Von
Hammer "the greatest Arabian poet"; and there is no doubt that his
'Diwan,' with its two hundred and eighty-nine poems, was and is widely
read in the East. But it is only a depraved taste that can prefer such
an epigene to the fresh desert-music of Imr-al-Kais. Panegyrics, songs
of war and of bloodshed, are mostly the themes that he dilates upon. He
was in the service of Saif al-Daulah of Syria, and sang his victories
over the Byzantine Kaiser. He is the true type of the prince's poet.
Withal, the taste for poetic composition grew, though it produced a
smaller number of great poets. But it also usurped for itself fields
which belong to entirely different literary forms. Grammar,
lexicography, philosophy, and theology were expounded in verse; but the
verse was formal, stiff, and unnatural. Poetic composition became a
_tour de force_.

This is nowhere better seen than in that species of composition which
appeared for the first time in the eleventh century, and which so
pleased and charmed a degenerate age as to make of the 'Makamat' the
most favorite reading. Ahmad Abu Fadl al-Hamadhani, "the wonder of all
time" (died 1007), composed the first of such "sessions." Of his four
hundred only a few have come down to our time. Abu Muhammad al-Hariri
(1030-1121), of Basra, is certainly the one who made this species of
literature popular; he has been closely imitated in Hebrew by Charizi
(1218), and in Syriac by Ebed Yeshu (1290). "Makamah" means the place
where one stands, where assemblies are held; then, the discourses
delivered, or conversations held in such an assembly. The word is used
here especially to denote a series of "discourses and conversations
composed in a highly finished and ornamental style, and solely for the
purpose of exhibiting various kinds of eloquence, and exemplifying the
rules of grammar, rhetoric, and poetry." Hariri himself speaks of--

"These 'Makamat,' 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,
Besides quotations from the 'Qur'an,' wherewith I adorned them,
And choice metaphors, and Arab proverbs that