al-Khalidiyan
- Died
- 371 AH
- Born in
- -
al-Khalidiyan were two fourth-century AH / tenth-century CE brother-poets and literary scholars from the region of Mosul, Abu Bakr Muhammad (d. c. 380 AH / 990 CE) and Abu Uthman Sa'id (d. 371 AH / 981 CE), famed for their joint poetic compositions and their prominent presence at the Hamdanid court of Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo.
Origins and Shared Literary Partnership
The brothers were Abu Bakr Muhammad and Abu Uthman Sa'id, sons of Hashim ibn Wa'la (also recorded as Wa'ka) ibn 'Uram ibn Uthman ibn Bilal, whose lineage traced back to the tribe of Abd al-Qays. They hailed from al-Khalidiyya, a village in the district of Mosul, from which they acquired their nisba, though Abu Uthman was also accorded the nisba al-Basri. Muhammad was the elder of the two.
The pair formed a close personal and literary partnership, traveling together and collaborating so intimately that poems were composed and recited in their joint name without distinguishing individual authorship, though each also composed independently. Before his death, Abu Uthman gathered his own poetry and that of his brother into a single collection.
Court Life and Rivalries
The brothers entered the service of the Hamdanid emir Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo, where they became part of his intimate circle of court poets. Muhammad also traveled in Sayf al-Dawla's entourage to Damascus. Both brothers were entrusted with the custodianship of Sayf al-Dawla's royal library in Aleppo.
Their time at court was marked by a fierce rivalry with the Mosul poet al-Sari al-Raffa'. Al-Sari accused the brothers of plagiarizing his verse as well as the works of earlier poets, while the brothers targeted him with extensive lampoons and successfully managed to have his stipends cut off at Sayf al-Dawla's court. When al-Sari subsequently relocated to Baghdad to seek the patronage of the Buyid vizier Abu Muhammad al-Muhallabi, the Khalidiyan traveled there after him, gained admittance to al-Muhallabi's circle as boon companions, and turned both the vizier and the Baghdad elite against al-Sari, reducing him to destitution and copyist work.
Standing and Reception
The brothers were noted by contemporaries for their sharp wit, rapid improvisation, and vast memory. Abu Bakr stated to Ibn al-Nadim that he had committed to memory one thousand evening tales (samar), each consisting of roughly one hundred leaves. The epistolographer Abu Ishaq al-Sabi' praised their harmonious collaboration in verse, describing them as a single soul conjoined in excellence whose poems would outlive time. Alongside this praise, Ibn al-Nadim recorded that whenever they came across verse they admired, their nature impelled them to appropriate it from its creator, whether living or deceased, rather than out of any inability to compose poetry themselves.
Their shared scholarly legacy includes al-Ashbah wa-al-naza'ir min ash'ar al-mutaqaddimin wa-al-jahiliyyin wa-al-mukhadramin (also known as Hamasa al-Khalidiyyin), a comparative work designed to prove the precedence of pre-Islamic and early Islamic poetry over modern forms, as well as the adab compilation al-Tuhaf wa-al-hadaya.
Death
Abu Uthman died in 371 AH (981 CE), though alternate accounts place his death in 350 AH (961 CE), 391 AH (1001 CE), or around 400 AH (1009–1010 CE). Abu Bakr died around 380 AH (990 CE), while another report gives 370 AH.
Answer updated
List of Works
al-Tuhaf wal-Hadaya (Gifts and Presents) is an Arabic adab anthology that brings together poetry, prose, and historical anecdotes concerning the practice and etiquette of gift-giving.
Hamasa al-Khalidiyyin, also known as al-Ashbah wa-al-naza'ir min ash'ar al-mutaqaddimin wa-al-jahiliyyin wa-al-mukhadramin, is a classical Arabic poetic anthology and comparative work. It is designed to demonstrate the precedence of pre-Islamic, veteran, and early Islamic poets in inventing poetic motifs, tracing how later and modern poets inherited, developed, and paralleled those themes.