Busiri

Būsīrī (Abū 'Abdallāh Muhammad ibn Sa'īd ul-Būsīrī Ash Shadhili) (1211–1294) was an Egyptian poet who was a follower of Imam Shadhili by enrolling himself in the Shadhiliyya Sufi order. He lived in Egypt, where he wrote under the patronage of Ibn Hinna, the vizier. His poems seem to have been wholly on religious subjects. The most famous of these is the so-called "Qaṣīda al-Burda - Poem of the Mantle, Nahj El-Burduh in Arabic." It is entirely in praise of the prophet Muhammad, who cured the poet of paralysis by appearing to him in a dream and wrapping him in a mantle. The poem has had a unique history (cf. I. Goldziher in Revue de l'histoire des religions, vol. xxxi. pp. 304 ff.). Even in the poet's lifetime it was regarded as sacred. Up to the present time its verses are used as amulets; it is employed in the lamentations for the dead; it has been frequently edited and made the basis for other poems, and new poems have been made by interpolating four or six lines after each line of the original. It has been published with English translation by Faizullabhai (Bombay, 1893), with French translation by R. Basset (Paris, 1894), with German translation by C. A. Ralfs (Vienna, 1860), and in other languages elsewhere.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• For long list of commentaries, &c., cf. C. Brockelmann's Gesch. der Arab. Litteratur (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. pp. 264-267 (G.W.T.)