“ For forty years he led a life of retirement and poverty, and, although Bahrām offered him a high position at court and his own sister in marriage, he remained faithful to his austere and solitary life. ”

“ Persian authorities are greatly at variance as to the dates of the poet's birth and death. At any rate, he must have been born in the beginning of the second half of the 11th century and have died between 1131 and 1150 (525 and 545 A.H.) . He composed chiefly qaṣīdas in honour of his sovereign Ibrāhīm and the great men of the realm, but the ridicule of a half-mad jester is said to have caused him to abandon the career of a court panegyrist and to devote his poetical abilities to higher subjects. ”