 He is considered among the greatest figures of classical Arabic poetry.He was born in 932 or in 933, probably in Iraq and specifically in Baghdad, as his father Abi'l-Ala Sa'id—a son of the Hamdanid family's founder, Hamdan ibn Hamdun—occupied a distinguished position in the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir (reigned 908–932).Abu Firas' mother was a Byzantine Greek slave concubine (an "umm walad", freed after giving birth to her master's child).