often been an obstacle to a full appreciation of his poetical value. Much of his poetry is considered to be abstruse, exhibiting a vast range of vocabulary and an abundance of play-on-words. According to Minorsky the poems "bristle with rare words, unusual similes and allusions to astrology, medicine, theology, history, to say nothing of the numerous hints concerning happenings of the poet's own life and time". Ali Dashti referred to him as "the inaccessible poet" and contrasted the difficulty of Khaqani's poems to the simplicity of Saadi's poetry. Khaqani is widely considered to be a major Persian language poet. His habsiyāt ("prison poetry") is considered one of the finest of its kind. The genre has been described as the "medieval Islamic world's most aesthetically compelling corpus of texts dealing with incarceration." The naʿtiyas (poetry in praise of Muhammad) procured him the title Hassān'l-Aʿjam ("The Persian Hassān"). Hassan ibn Thabit being a famous Arabic poet who composed panegyrics in praise of Prophet Muhammad, Khaqani's title is reference to the fact that he was the Persian Hassan. It is believed that the work of figures such as Omar Khayyam, al-Maʿarri, Unsuri, Masud Sa'd Salman, and Sanai were parts of Khaqani's literary background. In turn, his work influenced such men as Nezami Ganjavi, Jami, and likely Saadi and Hafez. According to Jan Rypka: "A Master of the language, a poet possessing both intellect and heart, who fled from the outer world to the inner world, a personality who did not conform to type — all this places him in the front ranks of Persian literature". References Footnotes Citations Bibliography 1120s births 1190 deaths People from Shamakhi 12th-century Persian-language writers 12th-century Persian-language poets 12th-century Iranian people Burials in Maqbaratoshoara Poets of the Shirvanshahs