oye GentleIllen Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture

300 THOMAS BAUER
form that was practiced by Shihäb al-Din. Though he mentions no titles,
al-$afadi explicitly states that al-Shihäb is the author of 'many qasidas,
rajaz poems, epigrams and dübayts:35
Finally, Ibn Fa41Alläh's relation to the dawädär that resulted from
his position in the diwän al-inshä' and his place in the literary system of
his period, as sketched above, make hirn the most likely candidate for
the authorship of the urjüza. The most probable dates for its creation
would be the years 727-729 and 732-733, when Shihäb al-Din acted as
. a deputy for his aging father, the officialkätib al-sirrof Damascus.
Shihäb al-Din Ibn Faq.l Alläh as a poet.
In Western sources, the author to whom the muzdawija can be attributed
is normally called 'Ibn Fa41Alläh al-'Umarf But there were more
famous members of the Banü Fa41Alläh, including his father Mul}.yi
'l-Din and his younger brother 'Alä' al-Din. Therefore, it is appropriate
to use no other form ofhis namerthan the form used in all contemporary
sources, Shihäb al-Din (or al-Shihäb) Ibn Fa41Alläh. Today, Shihäb al-
Dills manual on penmanship (al-Ta'rifbi 'l-Mu~talahal-Sharif) and his
encyclopaedia Masälik al-Ab~ärare used as essential sources for the history
of the period. But his contemporaries saw Shihäb al-Din principally
as a man of letters, an author of poetry and prose literature. Paradoxically,his
achievements in the field of literature are not even mentioned
in the entry on hirn in the Encyclopediaof <strong>Arabic</strong> Literature.36For al-
$afadi, however, mir author was the imäm ahl al-ädäb?7According to
this statement, al-Shihäb Ibn Fa