“O Commander of the Faithful! That jewel was fitting for me only when we still possessed the land; today it is not.” She thereupon took it and left. (1)

It is said that the court astrologers informed al-Muʿizz that a decisive calamity threatened him, and they advised him to dig an underground passage (2) in which he might conceal himself for a year. He complied; but when his absence grew protracted, his Maghribi troops imagined that he had been taken up to heaven. If a horseman among them saw a single cloud, he would dismount and call out, “Peace be upon you, O Commander of the Faithful!” After a full year al-Muʿizz emerged, yet once he reappeared he lived only a short while longer. (3)

Poets composed many panegyrics in his honour. (4)

Among his own verses:

From the arc of your brow beauty raised a blazing sun
That rose above the roses blooming on your cheeks;
Fearing those roses might wither beneath its heat,
It drew the shade of your trailing locks to shelter them.

And another of his poems:

By God, what havoc those eyes, hidden in their sockets, have wrought upon us!—
Sharper and deadlier to souls than daggers pressed against the throat.