Abu Nuwas: A Genius of Poetry (Makers of the Muslim World)

Abu Nuwas (c. 756 - 813) was one of the greatest Arab poets of the classical period. In literary history he is remembered chiefly as the hard-drinking and eloquent composer of dissolute wine poems, from which he emerges as one of the most charismatic figures in word literature. Yet he was in fact an all-round poet and exerted a profound influence on Abbasid poetry more generally; he is one of a handful of individuals who can be deemed to stand at the very heart of Arabic literary culture. In the narrative tradition his impish persona appears in some stories of the Thousand and One Nights.