Ibn al-Farid

Birthday:

03/22/1181

Place of birth:

Cairo, Egypt:

Biography:

Ibn al-Farid or Ibn Farid; (Arabic: عمر بن علي بن الفارض, `Umar ibn `Alī ibn al-Fārid) (22 March 1181 – 1234) was an Arab poet as well as a Sufi waliullah. His name is Arabic for "son of the obligator" (the one who divides the inheritance between the inheritors), as his father was well regarded for his work in the legal sphere. He was born in Cairo to parents from Hama in modern Syria, lived for some time in Mecca, and died in Cairo. His poetry is entirely Sufic and he was esteemed as the greatest mystic poet of the Arabs. Some of his poems are said to have been written in ecstasies. Ibn al-Fāriḍ was arguably the most celebrated Sufi poet in the pre-modern Islamic world, with his poetry admired across both Arabic and Persian speaking regions of the Islamicate. The Persian poet Jami is known to have written a commentary on Ibn al-Fāriḍ's poems, and Sa'id al-Din Farghani also authored a Persian commentary on his work[4]