Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-ʿAbbās al-Khwarizmi

Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-ʿAbbās al-Khwarizmi (b. 323 AH/934 CE, d. Nīshāpūr 383 AH/1002 CE) was a poet and writer in the Arabic language. He gained patronage variously in the courts of Aleppo (with Sayf al-Dawla), Bukhārā (with vizier Abū ʿAlī al-Balʿamī), Nīshāpūr (praising amīr Aḥmad al-Mīkālī), Sijistān (under Ṭāhir ibn Muḥammad), Gharchistān, and Arrajān (with Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād).[1]

According to Charles Pellat,

The critics agree in considering al-K̲h̲wārazmī as one of most knowledgeable authorities on the Arabic language amongst the ʿAd̲j̲am. He was further considered an authority on genealogies, but was above all famed for his prodigious memory, which allowed him, according to an anecdote recorded by many of his biographers, to know by heart a vast number of poems and to transform himself into a teacher of literature. Naturally, he wrote poetry, which has been judged rather severely by his critics; he nevertheless left, besides a dīwān, a collection of Rasāʾil which made him famous. One can therefore consider him as a letterwriter of talent, addressing these to great men, princes, viziers, commanders, scholars and officials on the most diverse, and often the most banal, subjects; the documentary value of these letters is by no means insignificant. They reflect a considerably disturbed life and are written in a rhymed prose embellished with all the rhetorical devices, but in a personal style which is, every thing considered, simpler than that of his great adversary Badīʿ al-Zamān.[1]