20 Pieces of Medieval Wisdom to Live By

Living in the Abbasid Caliphate during the late eighth and early ninth centuries, al-Rayḥānī was a writer, scholar and high-ranking civil secretary who served the caliph al-Maʾmūn. Born around the year 757 in Basra to an Iranian family originally from Khorasan, he reportedly began his career as a soldier before rising into the intellectual and political circles of the Abbasid court.

Al-Rayḥānī became known as a prolific man of letters. Medieval sources attribute around sixty books to him, dealing with subjects ranging from friendship and love to music, language and biography. Most have disappeared, but one particularly important work survives: The Jewels of Speech and the Pearls of Wisdom (Jawāhir al-kilam wa-farāʾid al-ḥikam).