Muhammad ibn al-Zayyat

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, better known as Ibn al-Zayyāt (Arabic: ابن الزيات), was a wealthy merchant who became a court official and served as vizier of the Abbasid caliphs al-Mu'tasim, al-Wathiq, and al-Mutawakkil, from 836 until his downfall and death by torture in 847.

Quotes

• يَقولُ لي الخلّانُ لَو زُرتَ قَبرَها
  فَقُلتُ وَهَل غَيرَ الفُؤادِ لَها قَبرُ‎
  • Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem (curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas),
    Dixi autem, An ideo aliud praeter hoc pectus habet sepulchrum?
  • My companions said to me, if I would visit the grave of my lover, I might somewhat alleviate my worries.
    I answered, "could she be buried elsewhere than in my heart?"
  • Elegy written on the death of a beautiful girl whom he had loved. Reported in Arabic and Latin by d'Herbelot, and repeated by Sir William Jones, Works, vol. 2 (1799) p. 520. First line of the Latin used by Edgar Allan Poe as epigraph to "Berenice" (1835). See: Michael Beard, "The Epigraph to Poe's 'Berenice'", American Literature, vol. 49, no. 4 (1978) pp. 611–13 [1]

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Muhammad ibn al-Zayyat on Wikipedia