Muhammad ibn Yusuf, the judge, recounted: “I was travelling with Muhammad ibn Dawud when a slave-girl suddenly began singing some of his own verses:

I complain of the smouldering pain in a heart whose ruin you have wrought,
the plea of an invalid to a companion who merely toys with his cure;
My illness swells with the passing days, its weight ever greater,
while you, confronted with the enormity of my plight, make light of it. (1)
God has forbidden that I be slain for passion in heedlessness,
yet you, my slayer, wrongfully declare it lawful. (2)

It was also said that Ibn Dawud had been Ibn Surayj’s opponent in debate, the two of them exchanging written rejoinders. When word reached Ibn Surayj that Muhammad ibn Dawud had died, he grieved for him, removed the cushions from before him, sat to receive condolences, and declared: “I mourn only for the dust that is now consuming the tongue of Muhammad ibn Dawud.” (3)

Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Sukkara, the judge, stated: “Muhammad ibn Jamiʿ al-Saydalanī was the beloved of Muhammad ibn Dawud, and he would provide for Ibn Dawud’s expenses. Nowhere else is it known that the beloved supported his lover. Among al-Saydalanī’s own poems are these lines:

I have borne the mountains of love for you,
yet I cannot even lift a shirt—I am too weak;
Love stems neither from beauty nor from generosity—
it is a thing for which the very soul must toil. (4)

Ibrahim ibn ʿArafah, known as Nifṭawayh, said: “I visited Muhammad ibn Dawud during his final illness and asked, ‘How do you find yourself?’ He replied, ‘The love of the one you know has left me as you now see.’”