Notes to the Introduction

1	Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 386. The orthography follows Woolf’s diary, whence the quote is taken.
2	The unpublished doctoral thesis by Naẓīr al-Islam [Naẓīrul-Islam] al-Hindī, “Die Akhbār von Abū Tammām von aṣ-Ṣūlī” (Breslau, 1940), includes a German translation of the prefatory epistle.
3	On his biography, see Meisami, “Abū Tammām,” in EAL, 1:47–49; Ritter, “Abū Tammām” in EI2, 1: 153–55; Gruendler, “Abū Tammām,” in EI3, s.v.; Larkin, “Abu Tammam”; and Sezgin, GAS, 2: 551–58; and on his works, see Stetkevych, Abū Tammām and the Poetics of the ʿAbbāsid Age.
4	Al-Marzubānī, Muwashshaḥ, 343–69.
5	Al-Āmidī, al-Muwāzanah, 1:6–56, and al-Ḥuṣrī, Zahr, 2:601–9.
6	On his biography, see Seidensticker, “al-Ṣūlī,” in EAL, 2:744–45; Leder, “Al-Ṣūlī,” in EI2, 9:846–48; Sezgin, GAS, 1:330–31; Osti, “Tailors of Stories” and “The Remuneration of a Court Companion.” See also the further articles by Osti on al-Ṣūlī as historian, “The Wisdom of Youth” and “In Defense of the Caliph”; on his interactions at the court, “Al-Ṣūlī and the Caliph”; on his famous library, “Notes on a Private Library”; and on his literary reception, “Authors, Subjects, and Fame.”
7	He is not otherwise attested (see al-Ṣūlī, Akhbār, preface, xviii) but must be identical with the military man to whom al-Ṣūlī’s enemy al-Ḥāmiḍ bequeathed his books in 305/917 to prevent other scholars’ access to them. Al-Ṣūlī mentions this bequest in §6.2. The dedicatee’s name appears variously as Abū Fātik al-Muqtadirī (Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, 2:406) and Ibn Fātik al-Muʿtaḍidī (al-Qifṭī, Inbāh, 3:141).
8	See introd., n. 6.
9	Four are lost; others survive partially in citations in the adab literature.
10	Of Abū Nuwās, Muslim ibn al-Walīd, al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Aḥnaf, Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ibn al-Rūmī, al-Ṣanawbarī, and others.
11	His collected akhbār of Sudayf ibn Maymūn, al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī, al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Aḥnaf, and the poets of Egypt have not survived; see Ritter, “al-Ṣūlī.”
12	For more detail, see Gruendler, “Verse and Taxes” and “Qaṣīda,” n. 20.
13	On practical criticism by literati contemporary with Abū Tammām, see Gruendler, “Abstract Aesthetics and Practical Criticism” and “Qaṣīda,” 350–51.
14	On this debate, see Gruendler, “Arabic Philology through the Ages.”
15	See introd., n. 7.
16	On the tension between philology and the emerging poetics, see Gruendler, “Meeting the Patron,” 75–80, and “Arabic Philology through the Ages.”
17	For a discussion of al-Ṣūlī’s reaction to this criticism, see Gruendler, “Meeting the Patron,” 75–80.
18	This has been published separately as Sharḥ al-Ṣūlī li-Dīwān Abī Tammām, edited by Khalaf Rashīd Nuʿmān, 3 vols., preceded by a study of Abū Tammām and al-Ṣūlī as his critic and commentator (ibid., 1:17–137). The edition by Muḥammad ʿAbduh ʿAzzām includes the commentary by al-Tibrīzī (see introd., n. 27).
19	See Gruendler, “Abstract Aesthetics and Practical Criticism.”
20	The first three qualities are variously referred to as ibdāʿ, badīʿ, ikhtirāʿ, iktifāʾ, ittikāʾ ʿalā nafsihī, yaʿmalu l-maʿānī wa-yakhtariʿuhā wa-yattakī ʿalā nafsihi, and his development of motifs as istikhrājāt laṭīfah wa-maʿānī ṭarīfah.
21	“Taking” is referred to in Arabic as akhdh, “stealing” as sariqah, “reliance” as lāʾidh bi-, “emulating” as muʿāraḍah, “copying, transposing” as naql, “imitating” as iḥtidhāʾ, and “inspiration” as ilmām.
22	Referred to as al-ʿulamāʾ bi-l-shiʿr, al-nuqqād li-l-shiʿr wa-l-ʿulamāʾ bihi.
23	The concept of “entitlement” within the theory of poetic borrowing (sariqah), whose first development was prompted by Abū Tammām, came into full bloom with al-Mutanabbī; see Heinrichs, “An Evaluation of Sariqa” and “Sariqa”; Ouyang, Literary Criticism, 146–54; ʿAbbās, Taʾrīkh, 252–336.
24	One list collected by al-Ṣūlī is labeled lawdh and naskh (§§44.1–10). A following selection quotes an unnamed author of a book on thefts (§§46.1–6), probably identical with the one by Abū l-Ḍiyāʾ Bishr ibn Yaḥyā the Scribe, quoted and critiqued in al-Āmidī’s al-Muwāzanah, 1:324–70; see n. 100 to the translation. A third section assembles the taking over (naql) of wording and meaning (or motif) (§§47.1–11). A fourth section displays stylistic matching or imitation (iḥtidhāʾ, taqdīr, al-kalām, ʿamila maʿnāhu ʿalayhi) (§§48.1–4). Note that the terms iḥtidhāʾ and ʿamila kamā ʿamila min al-maʿna are elsewhere used more precisely for an item-by-item matching (§40.3). Another term for borrowing, naql, has many further applications, such as a reusing of wording and meaning in a different genre (§69.16), a reusing of a motif without wording (§§25.5, 64.5), and a transposition of prose into poetry (§134.2). The inverse transfer of verse into prose is called ittikāl and ilmām (§§55.1–2).
25	A lexicographer of the Kufan school and assistant and successor to Thaʿlab, he authored several thematic dictionaries and was a book copyist known for his precision. However at his death he bequeathed his books not to a student or colleague but to a military man, Ibn Fātik al-Muʿtaḍidī (or Abū Fātik al-Muqtadirī; see introd., n. 7 above). He earned the nickname “Sourpuss” because of his unpleasant character. Al-Qiftī, who devotes two biographies to him, gives his name variously as Sulaymān ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad and Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān (Inbāh, 2:21–22, no. 263, and 3:141–42, no. 649); the former name is used by Ibn al-Nadīm (Fihrist, 1:240) and Ibn Khallikān (Wafayāt, 2:406, no. 273).
26	Bergsträsser’s lecture notes have been published as Uṣūl naqd al-nuṣūṣ wa-nashr al-kutub (1931–32), edited by Muḥammad Ḥamdī l-Bakrī. For the manuscript’s editing history, see al-Ṣūlī, Akhbār, preface, xi–xiv.
27	Published as Abū Tammām, Dīwān bi-sharḥ al-Khaṭīb al-Tibrīzī, 4 vols., edited by Muḥammad ʿAbduh ʿAzzām.
28	See introd., n. 2.
29	Non plene writing appears occasionally in the names Ibrāhīm, Ismāʿīl, Isḥāq, Sulaymān, al-Qāsim, al-Ḥārith, Ṣāliḥ, Mālik, and Khālid, as well as the word thalāth. Hamzah is frequently omitted in forms of the verb saʾala. The lengthening alif is elided in the vocative particle yā when followed by abū or ibn and both words written jointly.