“…A young man may still attain true honor
though his mantle be thread-bare
and the collar of his shirt patched.” (1)
Al-Madāʾinī reports that when al-Manṣūr lay on his death-bed he said:
“O Allah, in my boldness toward You I have ventured into grievous sins, yet I have obeyed You in the deed You love most—the testimony that there is no god but Allah—by Your grace, not by any favor of mine toward You.”
He then passed away.
Another account states that, after noticing signs of his imminent death, he set out for the pilgrimage.
A third report says that he died of an abdominal illness at the age of sixty-four.
Al-Ṣūlī relates: “He was buried between al-Ḥajūn and the Well of Maymūn (2) in Dhu al-Ḥijjah of the year 158 AH.”
ʿAbbād ibn Kathīr said to Sufyān: “I asked Abū Jaʿfar, ‘Do you believe in Allah?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’ I continued, ‘Tell me about the wealth you appropriated from the Umayyads. If it reached you through wrongdoing and seizure, you have not returned it to those who were wronged; and if it truly belonged to the Umayyads…’”
(1) The verse is by Ibn Hurma and appears in his Diwan (edition of the Arabic Language Academy, Damascus), p. 143. It belongs to a poem that opens: “Adhakarta ‘ahdaka am shajjātka rubuʿ / am anta mutabbal al-fuʾād maḍūʿ.” Ibn Hurma—full name: Ibrahim b. ʿAli b. Salama, Abu Ishaq—was a Medinan love-poet who straddled the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods. He frequented several Umayyad caliphs, later attached himself to the Alids, and composed panegyrics for them. He is generally considered the last poet whose diction is cited as authoritative linguistic evidence. For his biography, consult: al-Aghani 4/367-397; Tarikh Baghdad 6/127-131; al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya 10/169-170; al-Nujum al-zahira 2/84; Khizanat al-adab 1/204; Tahdhib Ibn ʿAsakir 2/237.
(2) Al-Hajun is a hill at the upper end of Mecca that contains the city cemetery. Amr b. al-Harith b. Mudad—some attribute the lines to al-Harith al-Jurhumi—lamented the disappearance of the House when he said: “Ka-an lam yakun bayna al-Hajun ila al-Safa / anis, wa-lam yusmir bi-Makka samir. / Nahnū kunna ahlaha fa-abadana / surūf al-layali wa-l-judūd al-ʿawāthir.” Biʾr Maymun is likewise located in Mecca. See Muʿjam al-buldan and Lisan al-Arab, s.v. “hajn.”