Note 17 — PREFACE.
Ameen Fares Rihani translation
“His poems leave no aspect of the age (in which he lived) untouched, and present a vivid picture of degeneracy and corruption, in which tyrannous rulers, venal judges, hypocritical and unscrupulous theologians, swindling astrologers, roving swarms of dervishes and godless Carmathians, occupy a prominent place.”—Raynold A. Nicholson: A Literary History of the Arabs. ↑