Diwan of the blind Tatili

Author's name: Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Abdullah ibn Abi Hurairah

His name is "Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Abi Hurairah", he is attributed to Qais by tribe, and to the country he is called Al-Tuwaili Al-Ashbili, because Tuwaili was the homeland of his people, and Seville was their place of migration. He has two nicknames mentioned in the sources, namely Abu Jaafar and Abu Al-Abbas. He was blind and that is why he was known by the nickname "the blind". One of the most important sources from which some information about his life is derived is his collection of poetry, and it does not contain any praise for any of the Taifa kings. Rather, it represents the Almoravid era alone, and his poetic activity is determined by the reign of Ali bin Yusuf bin Tashfin, who was the Emir of Muslims from 500 - 537 AH. The Almoravid era had a great impact on the Andalusian poet and his poetry. We find in the collection of the blind Al-Tuwaili and his muwashshahat an image of that. The poet went to the prominent men of his country to praise them, and most of these were jurists. In that era, the dominance of women became clear and their influence extended far into social and political life. Perhaps this explains al-Tuwaili’s interest in this feminine phenomenon in his praise of the free Eve, and in his odes to a considerable number of women. In his time, al-Tuwaili achieved greater fame in the muwashshah than in poetry. It was said that his contemporary and colleague Ibn Baqi composed three thousand muwashshahs. However, it is inconceivable that such a number or anything close to it would be attributed to him because he did not live long. However, it seems that he was prolific in the art of muwashshah, but he bragged more about it in poetry. However, all of his muwashshahs in this book, and the author added to this his collection, amounted to twenty-two muwashshahs. In addition, al-Tuwaili’s collection included “poetic letters,” that is, poems he wrote in the manner in which letters are written, in a letter to those who were far away from him, such as Ibn Bayya’ al-Sabti, and those who praised him. Due to the importance of this collection, Dr. Ihsan Abbas took care to authenticate it, relying in publishing this collection on two copies: the Egyptian National Library copy and the British Museum copy. He exerted great and continuous effort to present to the reader - in this collection - a correct text, and he worked on explaining the difficult words to ensure that the benefit is widespread.