and they had a slave-girl chanting lines of ʿUmar ibn Abī Rabīʿah’s verse (1):
Far, far removed from the maid of the All-Bestowing Lord is our abode
whenever we camp at Sayf al-Baḥr, near Aden;
Your people have taken up quarters in Ajyād, and we are left
with nothing but remembrance—or our portion of grief.
By Allah (2), say to him, without a tone of censure:
“Why did you choose to linger so long in Yemen?
If it was worldly gain you sought or even secured,
you earned nothing (3) by abandoning the pilgrimage.”
Ibn Jurayj thereupon wept and sobbed aloud, then, at daybreak, went to Maʿn and said, “If you wish me well, send me back to Mecca; I desire nothing else from you.”
Maʿn therefore hired guides for him, gave him five hundred dinars, and placed another one thousand five hundred in his hand, so that he rejoined the pilgrims on the Day of ʿArafah.
Ibn Jurayj said: “I remained with ʿAṭāʾ for twenty-one consecutive pilgrimage seasons; my parents would go out to Ṭāʾif while I stayed behind, fearing that ʿAṭāʾ might pass away and I would miss him.”
Some of the ḥadīth specialists remarked: “Ibn Jurayj has about a thousand Prophetic reports traced back to the Prophet; as for the Companion-level narrations, the disconnected reports, and his Qurʾanic exegesis, they are exceedingly numerous.”
- Ḥanẓalah ibn Abī Sufyān al-Jumaḥī (ʿ)
Ḥanẓalah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ṣafwān ibn Umayyah ibn Khalaf al-Jumaḥī, the Meccan ḥāfiẓ.