Manuchehri, Ahmad Ibn Kous Damgani

Date of birth unknown; died 1040 or 1041. Persian and Tadzhik poet.

Manuchehri was a court panegyrist for the Caspian ruler Manuchehr ibn Kabus (hence the poet’s literary name) and later for Masud Ghaznavid (ruled 1030–41). He was a brilliant master of the qasida with its nasibs —landscape descriptions and digressions of a love-lyric or hedonistic character. His glorification of the powers that be in similar qasidas were of secondary importance. A little more than 2,700 of Manuchehri’s bayts have been preserved.