While still young, al-Buḥturī visited Abū Tammām at Homs, on whose recommendation the authorities at Ma'arrat an-Nu'man awarded al-Buḥturī an annual pension of 4000 dirhams. Later he went to Baghdād, where he wrote verses in praise of the caliph al-Mutawakkil and of the members of his court. Although long resident in Baghdād, he devoted much of his poetry to the praise of Aleppo, and his love-poetry dedicated to a girl, Aiwa, of that city. He died at Manbij in 897.^[2]

He was often compared with the famous poet Abu Tammâm, who was his contemporary and mentor. The poems of al-Buhturî are examples of the classical style in Arabic poetry. He worked as a panegyrist to make a living and gained fame with his panegyrics.

His dīwan (collected poetry) was edited and published twice in the 10th century. First by Abū Bakr al-Ṣūlī, in the section of whose book Kitāb Al-Awrāq (كتاب الاوراق) on Muḥadathūn (modern poets), al-Buḥturī is included among a group of fourteen poets whose dīwans al-Ṣūlī edited and arranged alphabetically according to the final consonant in each line.^[4] The second editor arranged his dīwan according to subject (1883, Istanbul). Like Abu Tammam, he made a collection of early poems also known as the Hamasah.^[2] These collections of poems are also known as Diwans.