Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Mawsili, in whose home he died and to whom he had been wholly devoted.

Ibn al-Ikhshid (1), the theologian, said: “Al-Madāʾinī himself engaged in speculative theology; he was one of the young disciples of Muʿammar ibn al-Ashʿath (2).”

Al-Madāʾinī related that he was once ushered into the presence of the caliph al-Maʾmūn and narrated to him a series of reports about ʿAlī, whereupon al-Maʾmūn cursed the Umayyads.

He went on to say, “Al-Muthannā ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī told me:

‘I was in Syria and found that no one mentioned ʿAlī or al-Hasan; all I heard were the names Muʿāwiyah, Yazīd, and al-Walīd. I passed a man standing at his doorway who called out, ‘Give him a drink, Hasan!’

I asked, ‘Have you really named him Hasan?’

He answered, ‘My children are Hasan, Husayn, and Jaʿfar. The people of Syria name their sons after the vicegerents of God, and then the very man will proceed to curse and revile his own child.’

I said, ‘I had thought you the best man in Syria, but there is nothing in Hell worse than you.’”

Al-Maʾmūn commented, “Indeed, God has decreed that there be people who curse them, both the living and the dead” (3)—meaning the nāṣibah, those who harbor enmity toward the Prophet’s family.

We have already listed the lost writings of al-Madāʾinī on five and a half folios. Among them are: “The Naming of the Hypocrites,” “The Sermons of the Prophet,” the book “His Conquests,” the book “His Treaties,” “Accounts of Quraysh,” “Reports of the Prophet’s Household,” “Women Reviled by Their Husbands,” “History of the Caliphs,” “The Sermons and Letters of ʿAlī,” “Accounts of al-Ḥajjāj,” “Accounts of the Poets,” “The Story of the Companions of the Cave,” “The Life of Ibn Sīrīn,” “Reports on Gluttons,” the book “Omens and Good Augury,” the book “Jewels,” and many other works that have completely disappeared (4).