Little is known about ibn al-Abraṣ; Charles James Lyall provides an English survey of medieval stories of his life and times, but their reliability is generally doubtful.
Legends about him have him as a contemporary (and victim) of the Lakhmid king al-Mundhir III ibn al-Nu'mān, who died in 554, and Imruʾ al-Qays, likewise of the late fifth and earlier sixth centuries.
[2] Reinhard Weipert concluded thatHe was one of the leading men of his tribe when they revolted against the supremacy of Ḥujr b. al-Ḥārith, the king of the Banū Kinda and father of the poet Imruʾ al-Qays (d. c.550), and killed him.
There are many divergent versions of how this uprising took place, but it is an undoubted historical event, as ʿAbīd’s poems prove that he took part in it as a contemporary and rival of Imruʾ al-Qays and finally as his enemy, after the slaying of Ḥujr.
[2] Making reference to ibn al-Abraṣ's poems as numbered by Lyall, Gabrielli found thatthe sententious mind of ʿAbīd is expressed not only in his nostalgia for the past, but also in his praise of himself and of his tribe (iv, vii, xxii, xxiv etc.)