in the various branches of learning, and he was a revered dignitary, greatly respected and generous. He was put to trial and exiled to Murcia, where he remained for a time until King Ibn Hud (1) died, after which he was returned to his homeland.
He died in 640 AH, at the age of eighty-one.
Among the lines composed in his praise:
How strange that people should wander
along the by-paths of confusion!
They credited certain folk with merit,
yet those folk were never there.
Many are the claims, but what is truly verified
applies to Sahl ibn Mālik alone.
And he himself said:
The one whose life is embittered will never find ease—
whether he stays in one land or fathers children there.
Only a tranquil soul belongs to him whose ambition
refuses to settle for any place or to depend on anyone.
79 – Ibn Muqbil, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muqbil ibn Ḥusayn al-Wāsiṭī *
The erudite scholar, Chief Judge, Pillar of the Religion, Abū al-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muqbil ibn Ḥusayn al-Wāsiṭī, the Shāfiʿī.