95 — Abū Bakr al-Athram related to me: Ahmad ibn Shabbūya related to me: Sulaymān ibn Sālih related to me: Abdullāh ibn al-Mubārak related to us, from Sufyān ibn Uyayna, from Abū Hamza al-Thumālī, who said: Al-Mughīra ibn Shuba said, “Conversation with an intelligent man is dearer to me than honey with water from a rock hollow and pure gazelle milk.” Ziyād likewise said, “Indeed, to an intelligent man it is more delightful than unchurned milk cooled with water drawn from a rock pool on a day of searing heat, when the herds of wild cattle are scorched.”

A rasfa is a rock; mahd means milk; urfā means gazelles; wadīqa means intense heat; and ājāl means cattle, the singular being ijl. Al-Hasan ibn Jumhūr stated this. A rathī’a is milk from which the butter has not been extracted, and futhi’at means “was cooled.”