Al-Mofadhdhal, the first collector and
compiler of Arab poetry, and of Abul Faraj-Al-Ispahani, the collector
of the great anthology called 'Kitab-ul-Aghani,' or the Book of Songs.

Jarir and Al-Farazdak were two very celebrated poets, who lived at the
same time and died in the same year, A.D. 728-729. Ibn Khallikan has
given their lives at considerable length, and says that 'Jarir was in
the habit of making satires on Al-Farazdak, who retorted in the same
manner, and they composed parodies on each other's poems.' Jarir
always used to say that the same demon inspired them both, and
consequently each knew what the other would say. On all occasions they
seem to have been excessively rude in verse to each other, and did not
at all mind about having recourse to actual insult. The lives of
Al-Akhtal, Al-Farazdak, and Jarir, translated from the 'Kitab-ul-Aghani'
and other sources, have been given by Mr. Caussin de Perceval in the
_Journal Asiatique_ for the year 1834. Prom this it would appear that
the verses of these three poets were much discussed during their
lifetime, and often compared with the productions of the other poets
who followed them. Some writers are in favour of one and some of the
other, but the general opinion of them is that their effusions
resembled the Arab poetry written before the period of Muhammad much
more than any poetry that was written during the reign of the
Abbasides. Al-Akhtal belonged to a Christian tribe of Arabs, and was
much patronized by the Omaiyide Khalif Abdul Malik (A.D. 684-705), in
whose glory and honour he composed many verses, and, indeed, such good
ones, that Harun-ar-Rashid used to say no poet had ever said so much
in praise of the Abbasides as he (Akhtal) had written in praise of the
Omaiyides. He died at an advanced age some years before Jarir and
Farazdak, who were much younger men, but the exact year of his death
does not appear to have been recorded.

The blind Bashshar bin Burd and Abul-Atahya were two of the principal
poets who flourished in the first ages of Islamism, and ranked in the
highest class among the versifiers of that period. The former was put
to death, or rather beaten, by the orders of the Khalif Al-Mahdi, for
certain satirical verses which the poet is said to have written, and
from the effects of these strokes of a whip he died in A.D. 783.
Abul-Atahya wrote many verses on ascetic subjects, and all his amatory
pieces were composed in honour and praise of Ot