and harm gives rise to aversion; opposition is enmity; trustworthiness brings reassurance; contravening one’s desire makes one burdensome, while indulging it fosters intimacy.
Justice unites hearts, whereas injustice scatters them.
Good character is a comfort, but surliness breeds estrangement; arrogance is detested, while humility is cherished. Generosity wins praise, stinginess attracts blame; indolence leads to regret, resolve brings joy, and recklessness ends in remorse. Each of these qualities admits both excess and deficiency, and their fruits are sound only when their limits are observed.
Excessive generosity turns into wastefulness, excessive humility into abasement; excessive treachery teaches one to trust no one, and excessive sociability attracts disreputable companions.
He also said: “Nothing less is my due—now that I have produced these two books on the createdness of the Quran, a subject the Commander of the Believers so abundantly promotes and honours, and on the precedence of the Banu Hashim over ʿAbd Shams and Makhzum—than that I sit above al-Simākayn, indeed above al-ʿAyyūq, or that I trade in red sulphur and lead the mythical ʿAnqāʾ by its halter into the presence of the Greatest King.”
Among his works are: Kitāb al-Ḥayawān (The Book of Animals) in seven volumes; to it he added Kitāb al-Nisāʾ (The Book of Women)—a treatment of the differences between male and female—and Kitāb al-Bighāl (The Book of Mules). Later there was appended a work they called Kitāb al-Jimāl (The Book of Camels); it is not by al-Jāḥiẓ and is far beneath him.
A man asked al-Jāḥiẓ, “Do you own an estate in Basra?” He smiled and said, “Only a pot, a maidservant with someone to attend her, a donkey, and a boy. I presented Kitāb al-Ḥayawān to Ibn al-Zayyāt and he gave me 2000 dinars; I presented it to so-and-so,” and he mentioned something similar—meaning that he was in comfort and prosperity.
Yamūt ibn al-Muzarraʿ said: I heard my uncle say, “I once dictated to a man, ‘ʿAmr narrated to us,’ but he asked me to dictate, ‘Bishr narrated to us,’ and he wrote, ‘Zayd narrated to us.’”
I say: From al-Jāḥiẓ’s traits it appears that he invents things.