Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Thaʿālibī was a poet, critic, lexicographer, historian of literature, prolific scholar, and one of the most important literary figures in the tenth-eleventh centuries. His work Khāṣṣ al-khāṣṣ fī al-amthāl is a collection of proverbs and their equivalents in a number of cultures and professions.