“…the whole world is down with fever,” he said—for he himself had taken ill.

On another occasion he looked into a mirror and asked his companion, “Do you think my beard has grown longer?”

“The mirror is in your hand,” the man replied.

“A by-stander sees what the absent cannot,” he retorted.

Once he went in to the vizier Ibn al-Furāt and said, “We have dogs that will not let us sleep.”

“Perhaps they are only pups?” the vizier suggested.

“No. Each one is as big as you and me,” he answered.

When he prayed he would say, “Allah, His prophets, and His angels are enough for me. O Allah, return some of the blessing of our supplication upon the people of palaces in their palaces and upon the people of churches in their churches.”

After finishing a meal he would declare, “Praise be to Allah, by whom none greater may be sworn.”

He was once aboard a boat with al-Khāqānī, holding a ball of camphor. He spat in the vizier’s face and hurled the camphor into the Tigris. When he regained his senses he apologized, saying, “I meant to spit in your face and throw the ball into the river, but I got it the wrong way round.”

“That is exactly what happened, you ignoramus,” the vizier shot back.

Al-Tanūkhī (1) relates: Jaʿfar ibn Warqāʾ the amir told us:

“I passed by Ibn al-Jaṣṣāṣ—he was my in-law—and saw him in the courtyard (2) of his house, barefoot and bare-headed, running about like a madman. When he saw me he grew ashamed, so I asked, ‘What is the matter with you?’

‘It serves me right,’ he replied. ‘They have taken something enormous from me.’

I consoled him, saying, ‘What is left is plenty. Only someone who fears poverty would fret so. Be patient while I show you how wealthy you still are.’

‘Go on,’ he said.

I asked, ‘Is not this house of yours—with all its fixtures and furnishings—still yours? And your real estate in al-Karkh, and your estates?’

‘Indeed,’ he said.

I kept adding it up until the total reached seven hundred thousand dinars. Then I said, ‘Now tell me truthfully what remains wholly intact.’

We reckoned it, and it came to three hundred thousand dinars. I said, ‘Whoever still has a thousand—’