28 – Abū Zakariyyā al-Khathʿamī narrated to us, from Ayyūb ibn ʿUmar Abū Salamah al-Ghifārī, from Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Farwah, from his father, from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Masrūq, who said:

Muʿāwiyah remarked, “Ābī al-Laḥm al-Ghifārī has exhausted people with the verses he recites:

[Metre: al-Baḥr al-Ṭawīl]

My wife Qutaylah surely knows that
the brilliance of my fire is lofty, its dying far away.
I kindle it by my dwelling in the open waste,
and find none there but the one who drives the tent-pegs has lit its blaze.
If she meets no one save the noble-hearted, fit to be fed,
let her turn back upon herself—death is reaching for her.”

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: Abū Ḥātim claimed, on the authority of al-Aṣmaʿī, who said: Yaḥyā ibn ʿUrwah ibn Udhaynah related to me, from his father, that Muʿāwiyah asked, “Which lines of the Arabs are the most generous?” ⦗33⦘ So he recited them and then said, “You have achieved nothing; these are the most generous lines ever spoken by the Arabs.”