Abu al-Walīd Muslim ibn al-Walīd al-Anṣārī ( Arabic: أبو الوليد مسلم بن الوليد الأنصاري; c. 130 H/748 AD– 207 H/823 AD), [1] also known as Ṣarī‘ al-Ghawānī ( Arabic: صريع الغواني, "The One Knocked Down by the Fair" [2]), was among the finest poets of the early Abbasid period, and mawla of the Ansar. [3] As worded by Hilary Kilpatrick, he was patronized by Abbasid dignitaries, one of the first masters of the "refined" badiʿ style, [a] best known for wine and love songs, also composed panegyrics. [1]
As worded by the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, he was born and brought up in Kufa. He moved to Baghdad in the reign of Harun al-Rashid before the Barmakid debacle of 187 H/794 AD. [3]
He gained favour by Al Fadl bin Sahl, a wazeer in the reign of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn and was appointed as a postmaster in Jurjān (Gorgan in present-day Iran) by al-Maʾmūn and remained and later in Isfahan. He withdrew from poetry after Al Fadl was murdered and led a lonely life until his death. [5] He is buried in Gorgan.