129 – Yazid ibn Mufarrigh—his given name was Ziyad ibn Rabiʿah al-Himyari*—was counted among the leading poets of his age. His father, Ziyad ibn Rabiʿah, worked as a blacksmith; others say he was a shaʿʿāb in Tabala. Tabala—with the first syllable pronounced broad (fatḥa)—is a village in the Hijaz on the Yemenward side (1).
He was nicknamed “Mufarrigh” because he once wagered that he could drain an entire waterskin of milk and did so until he left it empty.
Ibn Mufarrigh produced both blistering lampoons and polished panegyrics, and his poetry still circulates widely. He satirised ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyad, who thereupon requested Muʿāwiyah’s leave to execute him. Muʿāwiyah refused, saying only, “Discipline him.”
Yazid sought refuge with al-Mundhir ibn al-Jarud. When ʿUbayd Allah reached Basra he forced Yazid to drink a powerful purgative, strapped him to the back of a donkey, and paraded him through the markets while he was relieving himself, whereupon Yazid declaimed:
“Water can wash away the deed you have done,
but my verse is embedded in your time-worn bones.” (2)
(*) Tabaqat fuhul al-shu‘ara, pp. 686, 693; al-Shi‘r wa-l-shu‘ara, p. 276; Ansab al-ashraf 4/374; Tarikh al-Tabari 5/317; al-Aghani 18/254, 298; Jumharat ansab al-‘Arab, p. 436; Tarikh Ibn ‘Asakir 18/138 b; Mu‘jam al-udaba’ 20/43, 46; al-Kamil 3/522; Wafayat al-a‘yan 6/342, 362; Tarikh al-Islam 3/90; al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya 8/95, 314; Khizanat al-adab 2/515.
(1) Ibn Khallikan 6/343 writes: Tabala is a small town on the road to Yemen for those leaving Mecca. The area is very fertile and is frequently mentioned in historical reports, proverbs, and poetry. It was the first province assigned to al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf al-Thaqafi. Never having seen it, he set out for it; when he approached, he asked where it was and was told, “It lies beyond that hill.” He replied, “No good in a governorship hidden by a hill,” turned back in disdain, and abandoned it. Hence the Arabs coined the saying about something trivial: “More insignificant than Tabala to al-Hajjaj.”
(2) The full account appears in al-Aghani 18/263–264, Ansab al-ashraf 4/375, and Khizanat al-adab 2/215. The cited verse comes from a poem that opens: “Dar Salma bil-khabt dhi al-atlal / kayfa naum al-asir fi al-aghlal” (“O dwelling of Salma in the stony lowland with ruined traces, how can the prisoner sleep while in fetters?”).