He also produced fine verse and enjoyed many virtues. Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā bought from him the book al-Jamhara (1) for sixty dinars, and on that very copy al-Fālī (2) had written:
For twenty years I found delight in its pages, then I sold it;
Long has my sorrow and yearning for it lasted.
I never imagined that I would let it go,
Even had my debts condemned me to lifelong prison.
But weakness, poverty, and little children—
Small ones whose every need keeps me pre-occupied—compelled me. (3)
Needs (4), O Umm Mālik, can sometimes drive a man
To part with treasures their owner was loath to surrender. (5)
Al-Fālī passed away in Dhu al-Qaʿdah of the year eight and forty and four hundred (448 AH).
26 – al-Sammān, Abū Saʿd Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn
The ḥāfiẓ Imām, the distinguished, accomplished, and exacting scholar, Abū
(1) The book meant is al-Jamhara fi al-lugha (The Lexical Compendium) by Ibn Durayd; in the manuscript it was mistakenly written al-Humayra.
(2) The verses are cited in al-Muntazam, 8/174-175; Muʿjam al-udabaʾ, 12/228-229; and Wafayat al-aʿyan, 3/316.
(3) tas-tahillu means “she weeps.” shuʾuni is the plural of shaʾn, the tear-duct next to the eye. Al-Muntazam reads jufuni (“my eyelids”) in place of shuʾuni. Ibn al-Jawzi and Yaqut add a further line: “So I said—unable to restrain the first flow of my tears—words spoken by a heart branded with sorrow.”
(4) Al-Muntazam has laqad instead of faqultu at the beginning of the line.
(5) Al-Muntazam transmits the hemistich as: dhakhaʾiru man ruziʾa bihinna danin (“treasures whose loss is grievously lamented”). This line is a quotation (tadmin) originally uttered by a Bedouin, as related by al-Zubayr ibn Bakkar on the authority of Yusuf ibn Ayyash: Hamza ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr bought a camel from a Bedouin for fifty dinars and paid the price. The Bedouin kept gazing at the camel, repeating: “At times, O mother of Malik, needs are removed—noble possessions that their owner is reluctant to part with.” Hamza then said to him, “Take back your camel, and the dinars are yours,” so the man went away with both the camel and the money.
(*) Sources: al-Ansab, 7/130-131; Duwal al-Islam, 10/262; al-ʿIbar, 3/209; Mizan al-iʿtidal, 1/239; Tadhkirat al-huffaz, 3/1121-1123; Mirʾat al-jinnan, 3/62-63; al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya.