69 – The judge Abū al-Qāsim informed us; Abū ʿAlī narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; ʿUmar ibn Abī Muʿādh reported: Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Kinānī narrated to us, and Ismāʿīl ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Zayd told me:

“My father used to perform the Fajr prayer while it was still dark. One day, just after he had finished the dawn prayer, Musʿab ibn Thābit ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr and his son ʿAbd Allāh ibn Musʿab came to him as he was about to mount his beast and leave for his estate in al-Ghābah. They said, ‘Hear some verses from me.’ He replied, ‘This is not the moment—is this really a time for poetry?’ They pleaded, ‘We adjure you by your kinship to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: do listen.’ So he recited on his own behalf:

O grandson of the Prophet’s daughter, O son of ʿAlī,
You—and only you—are the refuge from this hard age.

From an age relentless: none escapes its clutch
Though both horizons encompass them, unless you grant protection.

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Crushing debts have humbled us—insoluble claims
At the hand of an elder from Banū Thawbān.

In written bonds recorded against us—
Hundreds of dinars: count them, fully eight.

By my father and mother, if he should seize them,
The women and children will find life constricted.

He thereupon sent for Ibn Thawbān and questioned him. He answered, ‘The elder owes seven hundred, and his son one hundred.’ So he paid the debt for them both and, in addition, gave them two hundred dinars.”}