[d] Ibn al-Qaysarānī was born in AD 1085 (AH 478) in Acre in Palestine, then part of the Seljuk Empire.
[2] When the Fatimid Caliphate began advancing into Palestine, his father, Naṣr ibn Ṣaghīr, moved the family to Caesarea Maritima.
[2] The evidence of his poetry and career suggests that he also studied arithmetic, astrology, astronomy, geometry and horology.
He received an ijāza (authorization) from the famous poet Ibn al-Khayyāṭ to transmit the latter's dīwān (poetry collection).
[1] Ibn al-Qaysarānī left Damascus on a riḥla (journey in search of knowledge) to Baghdad.
He did not have success in Baghdad and returned to Damascus shortly before the death of his old patron, Tāj al-Mulūk Būrī, in 1132.
According to Sibṭ ibn al-Jawzī, he wrote a hijāʾ (invective) against Būrī's successor, Shams al-Mulūk Ismāʿīl.
[8] While in al-Anbār, he wrote in praise of Baghdad and with homesickness for Damascus, two well-used tropes of shiʿr al-mudun (city poetry):[12] In Anbār, I resided with a burning desire divided between two lovers.