Sayf al-Dawla
Sayf al-Dawla surrounded himself with prominent intellectual figures, most notably the great poets al-Mutanabbi and Abu Firas, the preacher Ibn Nubata, the grammarian Ibn Jinni, and the noted philosopher al-Farabi. Al-Mutanabbi's time at the court of Sayf al-Dawla was arguably the pinnacle of his career as poet. During his nine years at Aleppo, al-Mutanabbi wrote 22 major panegyrics to Sayf al-Dawla, which, according to the Arabist Margaret Larkin, "demonstrated a measure of real affection mixed with the conventional praise of premodern Arabic poetry." The celebrated historian and poet, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, was also part of the Hamdanid court, and dedicated his major encyclopedia of poetry and songs, "Kitab al-Aghani", to Sayf al-Dawla. Abu Firas was Sayf al-Dawla's cousin and had been raised at his court, while Sayf al-Dawla had married his sister Sakhinah and appointed him governor of Manbij and Harran. Abi Firas accompanied Sayf al-Dawla on his wars against the Byzantines and was taken prisoner twice. It was during his second captivity in 962–966 that he wrote his famous "Rumiyyat" ("Roman", "i.e.", Byzantine) poems. Sayf al-Dawla's patronage of poets had a useful political dividend too: it was part of a court poet's duty to his patron to celebrate him in his work, and poetry helped spread the influence of Sayf al-Dawla and his court far across the Muslim world. If Sayf al-Dawla paid special favour to poets, his court contained scholars versed in religious studies, history, philosophy and astronomy as well, so that, as S. Humphreys comments, "in his time Aleppo could certainly have held its own with any court in Renaissance Italy".