51 – Muhammad ibn al-Mughira al-Mazini related to me, from Musʿab ibn ʿAbd Allah. He said: I heard my father say that these verses are by ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿla:

Would that I had met my doom while still within the womb,
And no midwife’s hands had hurried to receive me into life;
That I had never settled in a world whose shocks appall—
Whose fleeting joys boil over like a seething cauldron.
Then I would not have to fear the stupor that attends death,
Nor would the mornings and evenings wear my body thin;
Nor, once I had died, would I dread the awesome standing
Whose terror makes the pregnant ewes cast forth their young. ⦗43⦘
So think, when calamities strike, what hurled you into their midst;
Your appointed end is near—death hastens toward you.
Hasten, therefore, to dispatch whatever provisions you can,
For all you will possess there is the very substance of what you send ahead.
And strive in earnest to equip yourself without delay,
For the dwellings you now inhabit will one day be laid waste.