In a poem in praise of Sultan Ma ˙hmūd of Ghazna, composed on the occasion of an ʿīd al-fiṭr celebration, ʿUnṣurī characterises the relationship between kings and poets in the following manner:

The flattery of a court poet does not provide very solid evidence for a historical investigation, even if its object is to examine a few points regarding the history of poetry as a profession. This need not mean however that material of this kind is completely useless. The statements of a panegyrist, even the most far-fetched, must have some link with real things and conditions, or at least with certain commonly accepted opinions, if they are to be accepted as effective hyperboles. What we may learn from the lines just quoted is that, in the view of ʿUnṣurī and probably also of his audience, poets were not just “the publicity men of the age,” whose duty it was to enhance the status of their royal patrons through the persuasive means of poetry. They were at the same time regarded as moral teachers to the kings themselves. The wisdom propounded in their poems was thought to be a source of guidance to patrons who wanted to go down in history as righteous rulers.

This passing remark on the usefulness of poetry to medieval Iranian society provides a convenient introduction to the questions I want to discuss in this paper: what was it like to be a poet in Muslim Iran during the Middle Ages? What was the social position of the poet, compared to the status of others who fulfilled a role in literary life? Finally, how can the Persian poet be described with regard to the change over from the Sasanian to the Islamic civilisation?