44 – Yahya ibn Abi Yahya narrated to me, from Abu ʿUbaydah, who said: ʿAmr ibn al-Ahtam once received a night-time caller and, in his honour, had a camel slaughtered. He then recited:

[Long Meter]

I called to a traveller who had set the dogs barking after the hush of night,
For the hour had struck when the moon, the sky’s lone wayfarer, pays its nocturnal call.
From rain-laden clouds there flashed a shimmering drop,
Whose hanging fringes poured abundant waters like brimming buckets.
I said to him, “Welcome, at ease, and twice welcome—
Here is sound lodging and a steadfast friend.”
I hosted him without roughness and never said—
To deprive him—“The courtyard is too cramped.”
By your life, a land is never too narrow for its people;
It is only the temper of men that grows narrow.