but that proved impossible. Avicenna records the incident in The Book of Healing.

340 – Dhu al-Qarnayn, Abu Mutaʿ ibn al-Hasan ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Taghlibi * (repeated 340)

The illustrious emir, deputy-governor of Damascus, Wajīh al-Dawla; Abu Mutaʿ, son of the ruler of Mosul, Nāṣir al-Dawla al-Hasan ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Ḥamdān al-Taghlibi, and a poet.

He assumed control of Damascus after Luʾluʾ in 401 AH. Robes of honor reached him from al-Ḥākim, who soon deposed him and installed Ibn Bazzāl. He was then appointed governor of Damascus on behalf of al-Ẓāhir, son of al-Ḥākim, but after a few months was dismissed in favor of Sukhtakīn. In 415 AH he was reinstated, only to be replaced four years later by al-Dizbarī.

His poetry stands at the pinnacle of eloquence, and his son was counted among the finest men of the Egyptian state.

Dhu al-Qarnayn died in Ṣafar of 428 AH; he was in his eighties.

Among his verses:
If you had been with us for but an hour—and seen us at the moment we renewed our farewells—
you would have known that tears themselves can speak,
and realized that some speech is nothing but tears. (1)

Another sample of his poetry:
I would ransom the one I visited, sword girded at my side,
though the glance of his eyes was sharper than its strokes.
I never slipped my scabbard off to embrace him
save to don another scabbard fashioned from his tresses.