السيرة · Biography
شاعر من بُست (في أفغانستان اليوم) عاش في العصر البويهي وعمل كاتبًا في بلاط سَبُكتكين ومحمود الغزنوي. اشتهرت نونيته «القصيدة البستية» بأبيات الحكمة المتسلسلة، وكان إمامًا في التجنيس اللفظي.
Buyid-era poet from Bust (in present-day Afghanistan), secretary in the courts of Sebuktigin and Mahmud of Ghazna. His Nuniyya (al-Qasida al-Bustiyya) is a famous chain of moral aphorisms, and he was master of paronomastic word-play (jinas).
القصائد · Poems (3)
أَحْسِنْ إِلَى النَّاسِ تَسْتَعْبِدْ قُلُوبَهُمُ
Do good to people and you enslave their hearts
For goodness has long enslaved mankind
يَا خَادِمَ الجِسْمِ كَمْ تَشْقَى بِخِدْمَتِهِ
O servant of the body, how much you toil in its service
Do you seek profit from what brings loss?
أَقْبِلْ عَلَى النَّفْسِ وَاسْتَكْمِلْ فَضَائِلَهَا
Turn to the soul and perfect its virtues
For you are human by soul, not by body