—superb, and many of his pieces are included in the Ḥamāsah.
It is also reported that Abū al-Faraj, the author of al-Aghānī, gathered his poetry and set it down in writing.
He was killed in al-Yamāmah in 126 AH.
Al-ṭathr is a kind of curdled milk.

17 – Marwān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, the Umayyad*
son of al-Ḥakam ibn Abī al-ʿĀs ibn Umayyah; Abū ʿAbd al-Malik, the Umayyad caliph. He was known as Marwān al-Ḥimār and as Marwān al-Jaʿdī, the latter by attribution to his tutor, Jaʿd ibn Dirham.
People used to say, “He is more steadfast in battle than a donkey.”
Marwān was a warrior—brave, shrewd, dignified, and imperious. He would link the day’s march to the night’s, so that the felt of his saddle never had time to dry, and he subdued the Kharijites in al-Jazīrah.
Another view is that the Arabs call every span of one hundred years “a donkey”; as Umayyad rule neared the century mark, they gave Marwān the epithet al-Ḥimār (“the Donkey”).
This derives from the story of ʿUzayr’s donkey, which remained dead for a hundred years before Allah—exalted is He—revived them both.
Marwān was born in al-Jazīrah in 72 AH, at a time when his father was its governor; his mother was a bondwoman.
In 150 AH he captured Konya, and in 114 AH Hishām appointed him governor of al-Jazīrah and Azerbaijan.
On one expedition he crossed the River of the Byzantines, raided, and took captives among the Slavs (1).
He was fair-skinned, large-headed, sharp-eyed, with a thick white beard, and of medium height,