470 — Abū Zayd al-Numayrī informed me, saying: Abū Ghassān Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Kinānī narrated to me, saying: Abd al-Azīz ibn Abī Thābit narrated to me, from al-Hakam ibn al-Qāsim al-Uwaysī, of Banū Āmir ibn Luayy, who said: My father informed me, saying:

A man from Banū Sahm, who was a friend of Sulaymān ibn Abd al-Malik, came to visit him, and Sulaymān welcomed him. He then came again, and Sulaymān welcomed him; he came a third time, and Sulaymān welcomed him; but when he came a fourth time, Sulaymān grew annoyed with him and said:

For earning one’s bread, the remedy is a saddle
set upon the back of a hardy, full-grown camel.
With your mouth open in quest of sustenance, you will find it
each day along some ribbon of road.

The man of Sahm said, “By Allah, Commander of the Faithful, the person with the greatest duty to close that mouth, unfasten that saddle, and dispel that distress is surely you.”

Sulaymān replied, “By Allah, I shall certainly honor our kinship and restore to you the treatment I formerly accorded you.”

Abd al-Azīz said: Al-Hakam also informed me that his father had told him that Sulaymān himself composed the two verses.