Abū Ḥayya al-Numayrī - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Weipert, Reinhard
Leiden
Brill
(346 words)
Al-Haytham b. al-Rabīʿ Abū Ḥayya al-Numayrī was an Arab poet of the Banū Numayr, who lived in the late Umayyad period in Basra and probably died some time between 158/775 and 180/796. (Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭabaqāt al-shuʿarāʾ , 146, says that he died about 210/825, but this date is obviously wrong.) The sources do not yield any clear facts about his life but abound with anecdotes about his personal weaknesses, including that he was an epileptic, a liar, and a coward. His poems, however,