Abd al-Aziz al-Fishtali () (15491621), fully Abu Faris 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Sanhaji al-Fishtali was a Moroccan writer, head of the chancery (''wazīr ''al''-ḳalam ''al''-aʿlā''), official historiographer and official poet of the Sultan

Ahmad al-Mansur Ahmad al-Mansur ( ar, أبو العباس أحمد المنصور, Ahmad Abu al-Abbas al-Mansur, also al-Mansur al-Dahabbi (the Golden), ar, أحمد المنصور الذهبي; and Ahmed al-Mansour; 1549 in Fes – 25 August 1603, Fes) was the ...

Biography

Abd al-Aziz was a member of the Fishtala tribe, a

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–1 ...

Sanhaja The Sanhaja ( ber, Aẓnag, pl. Iẓnagen, and also Aẓnaj, pl. Iẓnajen; ar, صنهاجة, ''Ṣanhaja'' or زناگة ''Znaga'') were once one of the largest Berber tribal confederations, along with the Zanata and Masmuda confederations. M ...

tribe situated north of the city of Fez. He studied under teachers such as Abu al-Abbas al-Manjur, al-Humaydi and al-Zammuri. He composed most of the pieces of verse which were engraved, on marble or wood, on the façades and inside the pavilions of the El Badii Palace in Marrakech. His friend and biographer, the historian

al-Maqqari Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqqarī al-Tilmisānī (or al-Maḳḳarī) (), (1577-1632) was an Algerian scholar, biographer and historian who is best known for his , a compendium of the history of Al-Andalus which provided a basis for the scholar ...

, recognized in him the greatest poet of his time and reported that the Moroccan sultan, Ahmad al-Mansur, said: "al-Fishtali made us more illustrious than all the other princes of the earth. We can compare him to Lisan ed-Din Ibn al-Khatib."

Works

al-Fishtali wrote 69

poems Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

, numbering 1016 verses. Some of his works are: * ''Manahil al-safa fi ma'athir mawalina al-shurafa'' (), the one surviving work of al-Fishtali, as the chief scribe of al-Mansur's state. It is considered to be the main source of information for the

dynasty A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A ...

. * ''Tartīb Dīwān al-Mutanabbī'' * ''Madad al-Jaysh'', a postscript for Ibn al-Khatib's ''Jaysh al-tawshīḥ''

References

1549 births 1621 deaths 16th-century Berber people 17th-century Berber people 16th-century Moroccan poets 17th-century Moroccan poets 16th-century Moroccan historians 17th-century Moroccan historians Berber historians Berber poets People from Marrakesh Saadi dynasty Sanhaja {{Morocco-writer-stub