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Dunno where this fits in the article, but Richard Burton used a quotation from Mutanabbi to head his "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah":

Dark and the Desert and Destriers me ken,

And the Glaive and the Joust, and Paper and Pen.

- Al-Mutanabbi, tr. by R.F. Burton

-- Slashme 05:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC) reply

It's mentioned in the article, it's an example of his pride (he was an egocentric-self obsorbed-Narcissist - not that I don't like him, I love him too!) However, the translation in the article is neither complete nor "literary". -- Maha Odeh 10:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC) reply

FWIW, I came across this plain but comprehensible rendition: "I am known to the horses, the night and the wilderness; I am known to the sword, the spear, the paper and the pen." Terry J. Carter ( talk) 00:42, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I think the word "Honest" can not be ascribed to describe his poetic style because more than one people testified against his honesty and there have been overwhelming examples to disprove the fact. In fact his name itself (mutanabbi) gives away the reality of his honesty (better described as dishonesty). Tahashoeb ( talk) 15:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC) reply

The quote

 "He who seeks pearls immerses in the sea" 

is a vers from a poem that is attributed to Al-Mutanabbi in the book "Instruction of the Student" (Ta'lim al-Muta'alim) by al-Zarnuji. But in fact this poem is not found on www.almotanabbi.com which contains all the works of Al-Mutanabbi. Rather the poem can be found the diwan of ash-Shafi`i. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Idris_ash-Shafi%60i for a reference to the diwan and its ISBN

Ash-Shafi`i lived much earlier than Al-Mutanabbi, and the qoute must thus be attributed to him. Therefor I suggest this be deleted from this article and mooved to the article about ash-Shafi`i — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.155.168.1 ( talk) 20:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Dear Middayexpress I can see that you have re-added the translation of that poem containing the phrase about the pearls and the sea. It is true that "Instruction of the student" does contain the poem. But please refer to the original arabic version and you will find that the poet's name is not given here. So even though the poem is in that book, there is no direct reference to the poet. However a previous section cites Al-Mutanabbi, and this is the reason for the common misunderstanding the it was Al-Mutanabbi who produced that particular poem. In the article about Al-Shafi'i I have have now added the ISBN number for his diwan (book of poems). Here you can see the entire poem in arabic along with full references. So I believe that this poem belongs to Al-Shafi'i and not Al-Mutanabbi. And if you do a simple google search for the arabic version of the poem, you will also find tons of references saying Al-Shafi'i. So please do not add these citations back in this article, but instead in the article about Al-Shafi'i — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.155.168.1 ( talk) 22:57, 16 July 2011 (UTC) reply

What has the image of a lion, showing its canines, got to do with Al-Mutanabbi? BronHiggs ( talk) 03:18, 27 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ BronHiggs: Read the quotes — 37.125.208.230 ( talk) 13:31, 23 August 2019 (UTC) reply