Abū Abdallāh al-Ḥusayn ibn ʾAḥmad al-Mughallis al-Marāghī (; the epithet also appears as al-Mughallisī) was a tenth-century CE poet. He flourished around 381 AH/991 CE, being associated with the court of Bahāʾ al-Dawla.Erez Naaman, Literature and the Islamic Court: Cultural life under al-Ṣāḥib Ibn 'Abbād (London: Routledge, 2016), p. 161 n. 78. He is noted as one of the only known composers of Arabic riddles in the third century AH.Carl Brockelmann, History of the Arabic Written Tradition Supplement Volume 1, trans. by Joep Lameer, Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East, Volume 117/3 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), p. 88; [trans. from Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur].

Epithets A few sources refer to Ibn al-Mughallis instead as al-Muflis ('the bankrupt'), but this is due to scribal confusion of the Arabic letters غ and ف: in medial position these look similar, and short vowels are not written, so that 'al-Mughallis' was miscopied as 'al-muflis'.Bilāl Urfahʹlī, The Anthologist's Art: Abu Mansur al-Tha'alibi and his Yatimat al-dahr, Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures, 37 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), . Mughallis has been glossed to mean 'the one who tarries'.Gabriele vom Bruck, 'al-Kibsī family', in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. by Kate Fleet and others, 3rd edn. Consulted online on 10 April 2020. .

The epithet al-Marāghī has been thought to suggest that al-Mughallis originated in the Adharbayjani town of Maragheh.Ahmad Shawqi Radwan, 'Thaʿālibī's “Tatimmat al-Yatīmah”: A Critical Edition and a Study of the Author as Anthologist and Literary Critic' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1972).

Works According to Bilal Orfali, the eleventh-century literary scholar ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʻālibī quotes from al-Mughallis's poetry in many of his works. His poetry anthology Yatīma includes al-Mughallis's work in 'the third region of the Yatīma al-Dahr: on the clever curiosities of the inhabitants of Jibāl, Fārs, Jurjān, and Ṭabaristān' ()', specifically the eighth chapter, 'mention of all the poets of al-Jabal and those who went there from Iraq and other places, and the clever curiosities of their accounts and poems' (). The collection quotes two riddles, on a touchstone () and banner (), and a little more poetry besides.

Thaʻālibī included more of al-Mughallis's poems in the sequel to the Yatīma, his Tatimma al-Yatīma, where al-Mughallis appears in the second region, entitled: 'completion of the second region on the beauties of the Iraqīs – rather, their best achievements and clever related curiosities' (). According to both the Beirut edition of 1983 and Radwan's critical edition of 1972, the Tatimma records eleven riddles by al-Mughallis along with a brief excerpt from a ghazal.ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʻālibī, Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-ʻaṣr maʻ al-tatimma wa-l-fahāris (), ed. by Mufīd Muḥammad Qumayḥah, 6 vols (Bayrūt: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmīyah (), 1983), vol. 5 pp. 24-26 [al-Tatimma ch. 11].

+List of riddlesPrincipal sourceSolutionLinesMetreYatīmaمِحَكُّ الذَهَبِmiḥakku al-dhahabitouchstone for gold2Ṭawīlاللِّواءُal-liwāʾupennant2ṬawīlTatimmaنَخْلَةُ عَلى شاطِئ نَهْرِ مِن دِجْلةِnakhlatu ʿalā shāṭiʾ nahri min Dijlatipalm tree on the shore of the River Tigris2Mutaqāribالسُفْرةُsufratudrawstring bag for food6Wāfirالبَيْضَةُal-bayḍatuegg2Ṭawīlبَاقَةُ الْبَقْلِbāqatu al-baqlibundle of herbs/vegetables2Munsariḥالزُنْبورُal-zunbūrhornet6Rajazالْمِقْرَاضُal-miqrāḍuscissors2Hazajالْسَّيْفُal-sayfusword2Mutaqāribالْمِيزَابُal-mīzābugutter5Rajazُالْكِتَابal-kitābubook2Ṭawīlصورَتِهِ الَّتِي يَرَاهَا فِي الْمِرْآةِṣūratu-hu allatī yarā-hā fī al-mirātithe image one sees in the mirror2Ṭawīlالْحَمَّامُal-ḥammāmuthe baths4Ṭawīlal-Wāfī bi-al-wafayātالقَبَّانُal-qabbānusteelyard3Mutaqārib

Primary sources , vol. 13 p. 202 [no. 3555] ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʿālibī, Yatīma: ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʿālibī, Yatīmat al-dahr fī shuʿarāʾ ahl al-ʿaṣr (يتيمة الدهر في شعراء أهلالعصر), 4 vols (Damascus: [al-Maṭbaʿah al-Ḥifnīyah] دمشق : المطبعة الحفنية, 1302 AH [1885 CE]), II 228. Yatīmat al-dahr fī shuʿarāʾ ahl al-ʿaṣr , ed. by Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd , 4 vols (Cairo 1956), vol. 3 pp. 415–16. Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-ʿaṣr maʿ al-tatimma wa-l-fahāris (), ed. by Mufīd Muḥammad Qumayḥah, 6 vols (Bayrūt: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyah (), 1983), vol. 3 p. 463 (ch 34), p. 468 (ch 34), p. 481 (ch 42) ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad Thaʻālibī, Tatimma: Ahmad Shawqi Radwan (ed.), 'Thaʿālibī's “Tatimmat al-Yatīmah”: A Critical Edition and a Study of the Author as Anthologist and Literary Critic' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1972), pp. 67–69 [ch. 66]. Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-ʿaṣr maʿ al-tatimma wa-l-fahāris (), ed. by Mufīd Muḥammad Qumayḥah, 6 vols (Bayrūt: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyah (), 1983), vol. 5 pp. 24-26 [al-Tatimma ch. 11].

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