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Al Ukbari; Qasida Sasaniyya

(Poem on the Beggars) (d. 964)

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Taken from: Tracing a Gypsy Mixed Language through Medieval and Early Modern Arabic and Persian Literature Modern Arabic and Persian Literatur. Kristina Richardson.

My brothers of the Banu Sasan (1), people of shrewdness and good fortune,

Theirs is the land of Khurasan, and then Qashan as far as India,

And as far as Byzantium and Zanj, and to Bulghar and Sind.

(1) The name of the Sasani (=beggar) poet Abu l-Ḥasan Aqil b. Muḥammad al-Aḥnaf al-ʿUkbari (d. 964) indicates that he had a clubfoot (aḥnaf) and that he came from the Iraqi town of ʿUkbara. Al-Thaʿalibi referred to him as the poet of the beggars, and al-ʿUkbari himself referred to the beggars of the Banu Sasan as his family.