[1] It is known to contain some of the best samples of colloquial Arabic to have survived from before the 19th-century and is considered unusual in pre-20th-century literature for its focus on rural rather than urban themes.
[1] Yusuf al-Shirbini was born in the first half of the 17th century in Shirbin, a small village in North East Gharbiyya province on the Damietta branch of the Nile in Egypt.
[3] He was well-versed in the Arabic science and literature of his day and claimed to have been inspired by Ibn Sudun, the 15th-century Cairene author of Nuzhat al-nufus wa mudhik al-'abus (The Entertainment of Souls and Bringing a Smile to a Scowling Face).
[6][7] Hazz al-quhuf is composed in the style of a literary commentary on a 42-line poem purported to be written by a peasant (Arabic: فلاح, fallāḥ) named Abu Shaduf.
[1] Hazz al-quhuf was first printed commercially in 1858 at the Egyptian government press in Bulaq, and since then a number of other editions have been published.