Muhammad ibn Nasr ibn al-Qaysarani

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Naṣr^[a] (1085–1154), known as al-Qaysarānī^[b] or Ibn al-Qaysarānī, was a Syrian Muslim poet who wrote in Arabic under the Zangid dynasty. He had a broad and scientific education, which included a sojourn in Iraq. He was one of the most renowned poets of his age,^[c] and the most prolific Zangid propagandist. He wrote extensively against the Crusades for his masters.^[d]

Ibn al-Qaysarānī was born in AD 1085 (AH 478) in Acre in Palestine, then part of the Seljuk Empire. He sometimes bears the tribal nisba al-Makhzūmī, which would make him a relative of Khālid ibn al-Walīd al-Makhzūmī, one of the earliest Muslim commanders, but medieval chroniclers generally reject this relationship.^[2] When the Fatimid Caliphate began advancing into Palestine, his father, Naṣr ibn Ṣaghīr, moved the family to Caesarea Maritima.^[4] There, according to the chronicles, he was educated in Islamic tradition and the Arabic language.^[2] The evidence of his poetry and career suggests that he also studied arithmetic, astrology, astronomy, geometry and horology.^[1][2]

In 1101 or 1102, his family fled Caesarea for Damascus following an attack by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.^[2] In Damascus, he became for a time superintendent of mechanical clocks.^[1] He oversaw the clock of the Umayyad Mosque. He received an ijāza (authorization) from the famous poet Ibn al-Khayyāṭ to transmit the latter's dīwān (poetry collection). It was through Ibn al-Khayyāt that Ibn al-Qaysarānī was introduced to the Damascene elite.^[2] He became the teacher of Ibn ʿAsākir.^[1]

Ibn al-Qaysarānī left Damascus on a riḥla (journey in search of knowledge) to Baghdad. He spent some time in al-Anbār. He did not have success in Baghdad and returned to Damascus shortly before the death of his old patron, Tāj al-Mulūk Būrī, in 1132. According to Sibṭ ibn al-Jawzī, he wrote a hijāʾ (invective) against Būrī's successor, Shams al-Mulūk Ismāʿīl. He then fled Damascus for Aleppo.^[5] There he met with great success under the patronage of the atabegs. He was appointed head librarian of the Khizānat al-kutub, Aleppo's main library. He joined the circle around Abū Ṭāhir al-Ḥalabī, the scholar and khaṭīb of Aleppo.^[6] He was invited back to Damascus by the Emir Mujīr al-Dīn. He died ten days after his return in 1154 (548).^[1]

As a poet, Ibn al-Qaysarānī is most famous for his panegyrics for ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī and Nūr al-Dīn ibn Zangī and his love poems for people from around Antioch.^[3] He also composed panegyrics for previous governors of Damascus: Shams al-Mulūk Duqāq, Ṭughtikīn and Tāj al-Mulūk Būrī.^[2] Abū Ṭāhir also received one.^[6] In one panegyric, he praises Būrī for the defence of Damascus against the Franks in 1129.^[7] In two rhyming poems, he commemorates Zangī's victories at the Battle of Baʾrin (1135) and the Siege of Edessa (1144).^[6]

Ibn al-Qaysarānī had a famous rivalry with Ibn Munīr al-Ṭarābulusī.^[1] According to Abū Shāma, "during [the] reign [of Nūr al-Dīn], the two masters of poetry of the times were Ibn al-Qaysarānī and Ibn Munīr." Ibn Khallikān, who praised him as "one of the greatest poets and outstanding udabāʾ [litterateurs]" of Syria,^[8] reports that he saw an autograph copy of Ibn al-Qaysarānī's dīwān in Aleppo. Only one poorly preserved copy of this collection of poems survives, kept in Cairo. Some of his qaṣīdas are quoted by Abū Shāma in his Kitād al-Rawḍatayn.^[1] In his early years, he wrote satire before finding his gift in panegyric.^[9] Among his poetic influences was Abū Tammām.^[10]

Besides poetry, Ibn al-Qaysarānī wrote a small biographical dictionary, Kitāb al-Ansāb, quoted by Yāqūt al-Rūmī and probably used by Ibn al-Samʿānī.^[11] Yāqūt refers to him as "a majestic poet and an outstanding adīb," while Ibn al-Samʿānī considered him "the most talented poet in" Syria.^[8] While in al-Anbār, he wrote in praise of Baghdad and with homesickness for Damascus, two well-used tropes of shiʿr al-mudun (city poetry):^[12]