And you went on to claim you would come again the following year—
alas, how unlikely that I shall still be here when you return! (1)
O marvel of beauty whose face alone
has been singled out by the Creator for a special grace beyond all other faces! (2)
What would it have cost you, on the day we parted,
to lift an eyebrow or signal with a finger? (3)
Be certain that I am utterly enslaved by your love;
after that, do with me whatever you wish. (4)
Another of his pieces reads:
By day he avoids me with an enemy’s disdain,
then spends the night with me as an intimate till dawn. (5)
When he passes, he fears the censor, so his words are insults,
but the coquettish play of his eyes is a greeting.
He died in Shaʿbān of the year 581 AH.
89 – Ibn al-Jadd, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Yaḥyā al-Fihri *
The shaykh, the imām, the erudite scholar, ḥadith master, jurist, preacher and eloquent orator: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Yaḥyā ibn Faraj ibn al-Jadd al-Fihri, originally of Lablah and later of Seville, a Mālikī.