Apology (Ar. iʿtidhār) is often recognised as one of the themes of Arabic poetry, closely related to, or forming a sub-genre of, panegyric poetry (madīḥ) . Thaʿlab (d. 291/904) lists it as one of the "branches" of poetry, illustrating it with two lines from a poem (the ʿayniyya) by the pre-Islamic poet al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānī, composed for King al-Nuʿmān of al-Ḥīra, after he had offended the latter. Thaʿlab is followed by many literary critics and theorists, such as Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī (d. 395/1005)