Ahmad informed us; Abu Bakr narrated to us, ⦗71⦘

46 – Al-ʿAbbās ibn Hishām also related to me, from his father, who said: ʿAfīf ibn Maʿdī Karib had declared wine forbidden during the Age of Ignorance and recited:

“She said to me, ‘Come—taste the thrill of youthful folly!’
I replied, ‘I have renounced what you well know of me.
I have abandoned the dice, though once upon a time
I was wholly enamoured, a captive to their spell.
I have made all wines unlawful to myself
Until I lie buried in the depths of a niche-grave.’”

Because of this he was called ʿAfīf (“the chaste”); his given name had been Shuraḥbīl.

⦗72⦘

47 – He also said:

“By Allah, never shall I be found among drinkers,
Competing with them for a draught while I live;
And by Allah, never shall I roam by night
To spy on a neighbour’s wife for as long as breath remains in me.”

48 – He added: ʿĀmir ibn Ẓarib in the pre-Islamic era likewise forbade wine and said:

“If ever I drink wine, I drink it for its pleasure;
But if I leave it, it is because I loathe and despise it.
It turns a young man into a beggar once the cloak in his hand is gone,
Robbing people of their reason and their wealth.
It bequeaths to men rancour where no enmity had been,
And disgraces the courageous youth of unsullied valour.
I swear by Allah: I shall go on serving it and drinking it
Until the soil of the grave scatters my very bones.”