Al-Madaʾini said:
He had other wives as well: Shaqrāʾ bint Salamah ibn Ḥalbas al-Ṭāʾi; a daughter of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (1); and Umm Abihā bint ʿAbd Allah ibn Jaʿfar.

Among those said to have died in roughly this same year was Arṭāʾah ibn Zufar (2) ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Mālik ibn Shaddād (3) ibn Ḍumrah ibn ʿUqfān ibn Abi Ḥārithah ibn Murrah ibn Nushbah ibn Ghayz ibn Murrah ibn ʿAwf ibn Saʿd ibn Dhubyān ibn Baghīḍ ibn Rayth ibn Ghaṭafān, Abū al-Walid al-Murri, better known as Ibn Suhayyah (4). His mother was the daughter of Zāmil ibn Marwān ibn Zuhayr ibn Thaʿlabah ibn Ḥudayj ibn Abi Jasham ibn Kaʿb ibn ʿAwn ibn ʿĀmir ibn ʿAwf—a captive woman from the Kalb tribe. She had first belonged to Ḍirār ibn al-Azwar and later passed to Zufar while she was pregnant, so she bore Arṭāʾah on Zufar’s bedding. Arṭāʾah lived to an exceptional age—over one hundred and thirty years—and was a noble, honored, and widely praised leader, as well as a distinguished poet.

Al-Madaʾini also said: It is reported that the descendants of ʿUqfān ibn Ḥanẓalah ibn Rawāḥah ibn Rabiʿah ibn Māzan ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Quṭayʿah ibn ʿAbs merged into the clan of the sons of Murrah ibn Nushbah and therefore came to be called “the sons of ʿUqfān ibn Abi Ḥārithah ibn Murrah.”

Abū al-Walid Arṭāʾah ibn Zufar once visited ʿAbd al-Malik and recited to him the following verses:

I have seen man devoured by the passing nights,
As earth consumes a fallen blade of iron.

When death arrives (5) it leaves behind
For the son of Adam no remainder at all.

I know it will come again and again
Until it fulfils its pledge against Abū al-Walid. (6)

ʿAbd al-Malik was alarmed, thinking the poet meant him. Arṭāʾah said, “Commander of the Believers, I meant myself.” ʿAbd al-Malik replied, “By Allah, what befalls you will surely befall me as well.”

Some transmitters add these further lines:

We were created souls upon souls,
Shielded by neither peace nor iron.

If one day you lose your peers in grief,
You have at least enjoyed long-cherished hopes. (7)