ibn ʿIyāḍ, and Ibn al-Mubārak was with him, when a man said, “Your wife and children are exhausted with need; they are desperate for this money. Fear Allah and take something from these people.”
Ibn al-Mubārak rebuked him and began to recite:
Take crushed wheat, and rice, and barley bread;
make that your lawful fare and you will escape the blaze.
Keep away, as far as you can—may Allah guide you—
from the emir’s palace; do not go near it,
for it is the worst of places to visit.
It enfeebles religion and draws you toward grave sin
before you, deluded one, tumble into a pit.
Be content—woe to you!—with the meagre provision of this world;
it is a realm of trial, decay, and deceit.
Have you not seen it strike down, before your very eyes,
the owners of lofty palaces?
How many a noble and a minister now lie in earth’s belly,
and how many an obscure, lowly slave!
Were you to leaf through their faces on a radiant day,
you would not distinguish them, nor know the rich from the poor.
They lie extinguished, felled beneath the fissures of rock,
equal before a King who knows full well their misdeeds.
Beware the crushing blow, O destitute one, from a fickle age.
Where are Pharaoh, Haman, and the falcon-like Nimrod now?
Do you not fear that He may strike you with annihilating death?
Do you not dread a Day grim, sullen, and severe,
when evil scowls beneath the torment of zamharīr (biting, freezing cold)?