7 – Al-ʿAbbās ibn Hishām ibn Muḥammad related to me, from his father, from his grandfather, that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was the first person in Mecca to dye his hair with wasmah (indigo). The story is that he travelled to Yemen, and one of its kings looked at him and said, “O ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, would you like me to remove this whiteness so that you look young again?” He answered, “As you wish.” So the king dyed his hair with henna, then overlaid it with wasmah. When ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was about to leave, the king supplied him with a large quantity of the dye.

On the journey home, as soon as he neared Mecca he applied the dye, and he entered the city with his head and beard as black as a raven’s neck. Nutaylah bint Khabāb ibn Kulayb, the mother of al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd ⦗51⦘ al-Muṭṭalib, said to him, “O Shaybah al-Ḥamd, how handsome this dye is—if only it would last!” ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib replied:

Had this blackness lasted for me, I would have praised it;
It would have stood in place of a youth that slipped away.
I have enjoyed it, yet life is short,
And death—or the feebleness of age—must overtake one.
Who is there whose ease and bounty endure for even a day
Once his very throne has crumbled?
A loud, swift death with no alternative
Is dearer to us than their pronouncements of judgment.

He (the narrator) concluded: After that, the people of Mecca began dyeing their hair likewise.