85 – Hārūn ibn Abī Yaḥyā al-Sulamī narrated to us. He said: Hishām ibn Muḥammad informed me; ⦗78⦘ Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Anṣārī narrated to me: ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb married a noblewoman from Mecca. A man came to congratulate him and remarked, “What a distinguished lady—yet she bears no children and is already advanced in age.” ʿUmar replied, “Were it not for the hope of children I would never marry; a simple mat in my house is better than a childless woman.” He then turned to Tamīm ibn al-Jihād al-Juhanī and asked, “How have you sung of women?” He answered, “I have said of them:

If one day you meet a girl of ten,
from good to better she climbs, eager for every letter;

And if you meet a maiden of twenty years,
she is the very wish—your sport and your desire;

The thirty-year-old is a boon your soul still needs:
her bloom is not yet gone, nor has her stem grown rigid;

Prize the forty-year-old with contentment:
her affection has not altered, nor has its freshness faded;

Should you encounter a woman of fifty years,
make her a shield—you will profit thereby;

And if you meet a woman of sixty years,
you will find her loving—piety and calm define her;

When you meet a woman of seventy years,
if she is courted you will find her quick to turn away;

The eighty-year-old whose pulse has grown faint
is tried by fierce old age, and her veins have slackened;

And should you meet a woman of ninety years,
you will find her dwelling straitened, its post now bowed.”

ʿUmar laughed and said, “Indeed, O Juhanī, it is only natural that whatever comes after forty should change.”