Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani

A medieval Arab poet and man of letters from Hamadan in western Iran, generally regarded as the originator of the maqama, a genre of picaresque rhymed prose (saj') recounting the adventures of an eloquent rogue as narrated by a fixed companion figure. His cycle of fifty-two maqamat, following the trickster-narrator Abu al-Fath al-Iskandari, applied saj', previously reserved for religious and political oratory, to secular entertainment for the first time. A century later his acknowledged successor, al-Hariri of Basra, expanded the maqama into the form's most celebrated collection.