Among the verses said to be by Ibn Yaḥyā (1):

“They claim that a strand of hair, once left in water, becomes a serpent
 whenever the sun touches it; I always thought that a fable. (2)
But when his twin locks coiled upon the radiant water of his face—
 and the two ‘serpents’ stung my heart—I knew the tale was true.”

209 – Ibn Nājiyah, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Barakah al-Ḥarbī
The erudite scholar, Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Maʿālī ʿAbd Allāh ibn Barakah al-Ḥarbī, jurist and preacher, better known as Ibn Nājiyah—this being his mother’s name (4).

He heard hadith from Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Busrī and Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ṭuyūrī.

Among those who transmitted from him were Ibn Sukaynah, Ibn al-Akhdar, and Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Hibat Allāh.

Al-Samʿānī said: “A jurist, God-fearing, delightful in his exhortations. He first studied under Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, then adopted the Ḥanafī school, and later the Shāfiʿī school. He told me, ‘Today I follow the evidence; I imitate no one.’ I wrote hadith from him.”

He died in Jumādā al-Ūlā, 554 AH, at the age of seventy-nine.