is censured, and his story is still recited (1) because he clung to the fringes of royal power and did not take the scholars’ course of openly challenging the sultans and their entourage (2); rather, he compromised. He then moved to Córdoba, respected and honoured, until he was sent across to the opposite shore, where he met his end (3).

I read, in Ibn Masdī’s own handwriting in his Muʿjam: “Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Mufarrij al-Nabātī (4) informed us: I heard the ḥadith-master Ibn al-Jadd and others say:

‘The jurists of Seville were present—Abū Bakr ibn al-Murajja, so-and-so, and so-and-so—and Ibn al-ʿArabī was with them. They began to discuss the hadith of the helmet. Ibn al-Murajja said, “It is known only through the narration of Mālik from al-Zuhrī.”

Ibn al-ʿArabī replied, “I have transmitted it through thirteen chains other than Mālik’s.”

They said, “Then give us the benefit of those.”

He promised them but produced nothing. Concerning this, the littérateur Khalaf ibn Khayr composed:

O people of Ḥimṣ, and you who dwell therein, I counsel you—
With righteousness and piety, a well-meant admonition.
So take from al-ʿArabī the tales of the night,
And take your reports from a God-fearing imam.
The youth is sweet of speech, refined in manner;
Yet when he finds no sound report, he invents one! (5)’

I say: This is a simple anecdote that does not indicate deliberate intent; perhaps the qāḍī—may Allah have mercy on him—was mistaken and his mind drifted to another hadith, while the poet fabricated a slander. I blame the qāḍī—may Allah have mercy on him—only for his coarse vilification of Ibn Ḥazm and for deeming him ignorant, whereas Ibn Ḥazm’s learning was far broader.