the mawālī.
He attended the funeral of Ḥammādah, the wife of al-Manṣūr, and al-Manṣūr asked him, “What have you prepared for this grave?” He replied, “Ḥammādah, O Commander of the Faithful!”—and made him laugh.
Abū Dulāmah died in 161 AH. Some maintain that he lived on into the first years of Hārūn al-Rashīd’s reign.
It is also reported that he visited al-Mahdī—after the caliph’s return from Rayy—to congratulate him, and he recited:
I swore that if I saw you safely returned
to the towns of Iraq, prosperous and secure,
You would invoke blessings on the Prophet Muhammad
and fill my lap with silver dirhams. (1)
Al-Mahdī said, “As for the first, yes indeed.”
He replied, “They are two parts of one pledge; they must not be separated.”
The caliph laughed and filled his lap with dirhams.
139 – Zāʾidah ibn Qudāmah, Abū al-Ṣalt al-Thaqafī * (ʿ)
The imām, the firmly reliable ḥāfiẓ, Abū al-Ṣalt al-Thaqafī, the Kūfan.
= 273; Taʾrikh Baghdad, 8: 488–493; Muʿjam al-udabāʾ, 11: 165–168; Wafayāt al-aʿyān, 2: 320–327; Nihāyat al-arab, 4: 36–47; al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya, 10: 134–135; Shadharāt al-dhahab, 1: 249–250.
(1) The two verses are cited in: al-Aghānī, 10: 253 (reading “nazartu” instead of “halaftu”); Wafayāt al-aʿyān, 2: 325; al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya, 10: 134; Shadharāt al-dhahab, 1: 249.
(2) For the various versions of the report, see the sources listed above.
(*) Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, 6: 378; Khalīfa, Ṭabaqāt, p. 169; al-Tārīkh al-kabīr, 3: 432; al-Maʿrifa wa-l-tārīkh, 3: 188; al-Jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl, 3: 613; Mashāhīr ʿulamāʾ al-amṣār, p. 171; al-Fihrist, discourse 6, art. 6; Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, 6: 56; Tahdhīb al-kamāl, MS 424–425; Tadhhīb al-tahdhīb, MS 1: 231; Tadhkirat al-ḥuffāẓ, 1: 215–216; al-ʿIbar (al-Dhahabī), 1: 236; Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ, 1: 288; Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, 3: 306–307; Ṭabaqāt al-ḥuffāẓ, pp. 91–92; Khulāṣat tadhhīb al-kamāl, p. 120; Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, 1: 174–175; Shadharāt al-dhahab, 1: 251.