Ibn Ḥazm’s corpus is vast; were I to start recounting his witty remarks and the singular views in which he diverged, the matter would become interminable.

The ḥadith scholar Abū ’l-Qāsim Ibn Bashkwāl states in his work al-Ṣilah (1): “The judge Ṣāʿid ibn Aḥmad related: Ibn Ḥazm wrote to me in his own hand, saying:

‘I was born in Córdoba, on the eastern side of the city, in the suburb (rabḍ) of Munyat al-Mughīrah, before sunrise in the last hours of the night of Wednesday, the final day of Ramadan in the year 384 AH, with Scorpio rising; that date corresponds to 7 November (2).’

Ṣāʿid adds: ‘I copied from the handwriting of his son Abū Rāfiʿ that his father passed away on Sunday evening, with two nights remaining of Shaʿbān in the year 456 AH; his age was seventy-one years and a few months (3)—may Allah have mercy on him.’

From the poetry of Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm:

I never bewailed estrangement nor yielded to desertion, nor throughout my days have I tasted consolation.
Names whose import I never grasped—such words of relief never once crossed my mind or ranged through my domain.
My sickness is the mortal one whose gusts long ago swept over me, wearing me down in despair.
Its sudden night visits still roam unceasingly to the gatherings of my loved ones and friends.
It is as though parting takes me for its leader: wherever it spies my path, it follows and overtakes me.
I had thought myself hardened against separation, yet a wasting ailment lodged its captive grief in my heart (4).
She met me in shifting hues, and I advanced matching every shade of my passion with hues of my own.