Al-Kattānī said: It is reported that he used up one hundred ratls of ink; his books were once burned and he rewrote them. He then added: “He was somewhat lax, and suspicion was voiced about him with regard to Ibn Hārūn.”(1)

He passed away in Jumāda al-Ūlā, 418 AH, at the age of eighty.

229 – Ibn Darrāj, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿĀṣ al-Qasṭallī
The erudite scholar, accomplished prose-stylist, and master of eloquence, Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿĀṣ al-Qasṭallī, an Andalusian, was counted among the leading men of letters and foremost poets of his time.

Al-Thaʿālibī said: “In al-Andalus he was what al-Mutanabbī was in Syria.”
I (the author) say: He served among the secretaries of al-Manṣūr al-Ḥājib.

He composed a celebrated ode, in which he says:
“Do you not know that to remain is but estrangement,
and that the houses of the helpless are graves?
You warn me of the journey’s length, yet it is
but an envoy to the kissing of al-ʿĀmirī’s hand.(2)
Leave me to drink the brackish waters of the wastelands,
until I reach the sweet waters of noble deeds.(3)”

He died in Jumāda al-Ākhirah, 421 AH, at the age of seventy-five.