278 – Abu Zakariyya al-Khathʿamī related to me that a Bedouin once said to his little son:

“I dedicated you, after all the trials I survived,
until you guarded my bow and the locks upon my brow turned grey.
When the silver of age flashed in the whiteness of my beard,
you pressed hard against the foe—through you my sternness shows—
humbling my enemies and shielding the women of my household.”