436 — Abū Zayd al-Numayrī informed me, saying: Umar ibn Muhammad ibn Aqaysir al-Sulamī related to me, saying: Yahyā ibn Urwa ibn Udhayna related to me, saying:

“My father and a group of poets came to Hishām ibn Abd al-Malik and recited their poetry before him. He asked each man his lineage, and when he recognized my father, he said, ‘Are you not the one who said:

[al-Basīt meter]

I know full well, with no covetous expectation in my heart,
That the provision allotted me will surely come to me.
I strive after it, but seeking it brings me weariness;
Were I to sit still, it would come without wearying me.

Why, then, did you not remain seated until it came to you?’

“When they departed from his presence, my father mounted his riding beast and rode until he reached Medina. Hishām then turned his attention to the poets and ordered that their rewards be given. Finding my father absent, he asked about him and was told that he had departed. He said, ‘Indeed, by Allah, he shall assuredly learn that it will come to him in his own home!’ He then granted my father twice as much as he had given any one of his companions and assigned him two stipends, both of which I myself used to collect.”