Abu Nuwas

Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī (variant: Al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī 'Abd al-Awal al-Ṣabāḥ, Abū 'Alī (), known as Abū Nuwās al-Salamī () or just Abū Nuwās ( "Abū Novās"); 756814) was a classical Arabic poet. Born in the city of Ahvaz, in modern-day Iran, to an Arab father and a Persian mother, he became a master of all the contemporary genres of Arabic poetry. He also entered the folkloric tradition, appearing several times in "One Thousand and One Nights". He died during the Great Abbasid Civil War before al-Ma’mūn advanced from Khurāsān in either 199 or 200 AH (814–816 AD).
Early life.
Nuwas's father, Hānī, whom the poet never knew, was an Arab, a descendant of the Jizani tribe Banu Hakam and a soldier in the army of Marwan II. His Persian mother, Jullaban, worked as a weaver. Biographers differ on the date of Nuwas's birth, with estimates ranging from 747 to 762. Some sources say that he was born in Basra.
Work.
Ismail bin Nubakht, one of Nuwas's contemporaries, said:
"I never saw a man of more extensive learning than Abu Nuwas, nor one who, with a memory so richly furnished, possessed so few books. After his death we searched his house, and could only find one book-cover containing a quire of paper, in which was a collection of rare expressions and grammatical observations."
The earliest anthologies of his poetry and his biography were produced by:
Imprisonment and death.
Because he frequently indulged in drunken exploits, Nuwas was imprisoned during the reign of Al-Amin, shortly before his death. The cause of his death is disputed; some say that Nuwas died in prison, while others claim that he was poisoned.
 Nuwas was buried in Shunizi cemetery in Baghdad.
Legacy.
Nuwas is one of a number of writers credited with inventing the literary form of the "mu‘ammā" (literally "blinded" or "obscured"), a riddle which is solved "by combining the constituent letters of the word or name to be found". Ibn Quzman, who was writing in Al-Andalus in the 12th century, admired him deeply and has been compared to him.
Censorship.
While his works were in circulation freely until the early years of the twentieth century, the first modern censored edition of his works was published in Cairo in 1932. In January 2001, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture ordered the burning of some 6,000 copies of books of Nuwas's homoerotic poetry. In the Saudi "Global Arabic Encyclopedia" entry for Abu Nuwas, all mentions of pederasty were omitted.
Monuments.
The city of Baghdad has several places named for the poet. Abū Nuwās Street runs along the east bank of the Tigris River, in a neighbourhood that was once the city's showpiece. Abu Nuwas Park is located on the 2.5-kilometer stretch between the Jumhouriya Bridge and a park that extends out to the river in Karada near the 14th of July Bridge.
In 1976, a crater on the planet Mercury was named in honor of Abu Nuwas.
In popular culture.
A heavily fictionalised Abu Nuwas is the protagonist of the novels "The Father of Locks" (Dedalus Books, 2009) and "The Khalifah's Mirror" (2012) by Andrew Killeen, in which he is depicted as a spy working for Ja'far al-Barmaki.
In the Sudanese novel "Season of Migration to the North" (1966) by Tayeb Salih, Abu Nuwas's love poetry is cited extensively by one of the novel's protagonists, the Sudanese Mustafa Sa'eed, as a means of seducing a young English woman in London: "Does it not please you that the earth is awaking,/ That old virgin wine is there for the taking?"
The Tanzanian artist Godfrey Mwampembwa (Gado) created a Swahili comic book called "Abunuwasi" which was published in 1996. It features a trickster figure named Abunuwasi as the protagonist in three stories draw inspiration from East African folklore as well as the fictional Abu Nuwasi of "One Thousand and One Nights".
In Pasolini's Arabian Nights, the "Sium" story is based on Abu Nuwas' erotic poetry. The original poems are used throughout the scene.