150 – Muḥammad ibn ʿAbbād ibn Mūsā narrated to me; Hishām ibn Muḥammad reported to us, from ʿAwn ibn Ayyūb al-Bajalī, who said: I heard my grandfather, Abū Zurʿah ibn ʿAmr ibn Jarīr, relate on the authority of his father:

“Do you know which day is referred to in the story of al-Nuʿmān ibn al-Mundhir?” We replied, “No.” He said: “Al-Nuʿmān once went out for pleasure and to hunt, and at that time he worshipped idols. As he passed by a cemetery on the outskirts of al-Ḥīrah he stopped near it. ʿAdī ibn Zayd said to him, ‘O noble one—may you be spared reproach—do you know what these graves are saying?’ He answered, ‘No.’ ʿAdī said, ‘They are saying:

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O riding party, alive upon the earth and moving along;
As you are now we once were, and as we are now you shall be.’

Al-Nuʿmān said, ‘Repeat it for me,’ so he repeated it, and Nuʿmān went back with a softened heart.

Some time later he went out again and stopped by the same graves. ʿAdī said, ‘O noble one—may you be spared reproach—do you know what they are saying?’ He said, ‘What are they saying?’ ʿAdī replied, ‘They say:

Many a company once dismounted round about us,
Drinking wine mixed with cool, limpid water;
Then they vanished—the onslaught of time swept them away,
And thus does time ever bring one state after another.’

Nuʿmān said, ‘Repeat it,’ so he did. Nuʿmān returned embracing Christianity, and he died a Christian.”