231 – My father related to me, on the authority of an elder from Thaqif, that a stone was discovered in a pit in al-Hirah. It bore the inscription: “I am ʿAbd al-Masīḥ ibn Ḥibbān ibn Nafīlah.

For the whole span of my life I pursued the course of time,
And of my ambitions I attained more than plenty.
I grappled with events and they grappled with me,
Yet I never bent to a crushing ordeal.
I was on the verge of reaching the Pleiades in honor,
But there is no path that leads to immortality.”