196 – Muḥammad ibn Sahl ibn Bassām al-Azdī narrated to me, from Hishām ibn Muḥammad. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUthmān ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥāṭib al-Jumaḥī then related to me, from his father, who said:

We—several men of Quraysh—set out as a delegation to al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. When we reached a district of al-Samāwah, we stopped at a watering place. A strikingly beautiful woman came up to us and said, “O people, attend a man who is dying. Bear witness to what he says, advise him to make his bequest, and prompt him (with the testimony of faith).”

We rose and went with her. We found a man breathing his last, and we spoke to him. Around him were his little sons—children so small that a single basket would have covered them all—as though they had all been born on one day, six or seven in number. When he heard us speak, he opened his eyes, wept, and recited:

Woe for the little ones I leave behind;
So weak they can scarcely stand upon their shanks at dawn.
There was still strength in me—had time but returned me
To my sons until they could reach self-sufficiency.

⦗360⦘

All of us were moved to tears. We did not leave him until he died; we then buried him. When we arrived before al-Walīd we told him what had happened. He sent for the man’s wife and children, they were brought before him, and he assigned them stipends and treated them generously.