Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (246-328/860-940), poet and man of letters, a pioneer in the Arabic literature of al-Andalus, is best known for his encyclopedic work al-ʿIqd , "The necklace" (or al-ʿIqd al-farīd , "The unique necklace," as it came to be known). He was born in Córdoba on 10 Ramaḍān 246/29 November 860 and died there on 18 Jumādā I 328/3 March 940. In the ʿIqd he sets out to record, from all domains of Arab-Islamic general culture,