 When Abu'l-Abbas became old enough, he also began serving the Abbasids and later became the patron of his tutor, the poet Ibn Duraid.Abu'l-Abbas later moved to Nishapur, in his homeland Khorasan, then under the control of the Iranian Samanids.In 958, he was appointed as the head of chancery by the "vizier" of the Samanid ruler Abd al-Malik I, Abu Ja'far 'Utbi.