Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Saʿālibī al-Nīsābūrī. He was a distinguished figure in Arabic language and literature, as well as in history. He also authored major classified works in poetry, prose, eloquence (balāgha), and clarity of expression (faṣāḥa). His greatest book is Yatīmat al-Dahr fī Maḥāsin Ahl al-ʿAṣr. Regarding this work, a poet said:
"The verses of poetry in the work called al-Yatīma
Are the great children of ideas that remained from ancient times.
Those ideas have perished. These children lived on after them.
For this reason, they were called orphans."
The reason he was given the name Saʿālibī is that he was a craftsman who sewed fox furs. As is known, the Arabic word for fox is thaʿlab; its plural is saʿālib.
Saʿālibī has beautiful and numerous poems. He was born in the year 350 of the Hijra and died in the same year.