Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: D. S. Rice, The Unique Quran Manu-

script of Ibn al-Bawwab in the Chester Beatty Library

(Dublin: E. Walker, 1955); Yasser Tabbaa, The Transfor-

mation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival (Seattle: 

University of Washington Press, 2001).

Ibn al-Farid, Abu Hafs Umar

 

(1181–1235)  

leading poet of the Arabic language and a widely 

recognized Sufi saint of Egypt

Umar Ibn al-Farid was born and lived most of his 

life in e

gypt

. He spent 15 years in m

ecca

, where 

he went after the death of his father. It is not clear 

how he supported himself, but he probably made 

a living teaching poetry and literature as well as 

having a sinecure teaching 

hadith

, in which he 

was trained.

Ibn al-Farid’s poetry has long been highly 

esteemed for its beauty. His poems often bear mul-

tiple meanings and can be read as poems of love 

and pleasure or of the mystical path of s

UFism

.

During his life and in the first generations after 

his death, Ibn al-Farid was mostly known as a 

mystically inclined poet, and it was very much his 

poetry that defined his early reputation. He was an 

active member of the literary society of his time, 

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