Abū Bakr Ibn Durayd said:
Al-Ashnandānī narrated to us; al-Tawzī related (1) from Abū ʿUbaydah, from ʿUthmān al-Battī, who said:
“I once saw Jarīr, his lips ceaselessly moving in tasbīḥ (glorification). I asked him, ‘What benefit is this to you when you revile a chaste woman?’ He replied,
‘subḥān Allāh, al-ḥamdu li-llāh, lā ilāha illā Allāh, Allāhu akbar (Glory be to Allah; all praise is due to Allah; there is no deity but Allah; Allah is Most Great). “Indeed, good deeds erase bad deeds” (Q 11:114)—a true promise from Allah.’ (2)

Hishām ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī reported from his father:
A man of Banū ʿUdhrah entered upon ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān and praised him with a poem while the three poets—Jarīr, al-Farazdaq, and al-Akhtal—were present, though the Bedouin did not recognize them. ʿAbd al-Malik asked him, “Do you know the most scathing verse uttered by the Arabs since the rise of Islam?”
“Yes,” he answered, “Jarīr’s line:
Lower your gaze, for you are of Numayr;
you have reached neither Kaʿb nor Kilāb.

“Excellent,” said the caliph. “Do you know the most laudatory verse spoken in Islam?”
“Yes,” he said, “Jarīr’s line:
Are you not the best of those who ride their mounts,
and the most open-handed of mankind when the cup is passed?

“You are right and well spoken,” the caliph continued. “Do you know the most delicate verse composed in Islam?”
“Yes,” he replied, “Jarīr’s line:
The eyes whose corners languish with sickness have slain us,
yet they did not bring our slain to life again.
They fell the man of reason till he lies inert,
though they are the frailest of Allah’s creatures in frame.

“Well done,” said ʿAbd al-Malik. “Do you know Jarīr?”
“No, by Allah, though I long to see him.”
“This,” said the caliph, “is Jarīr, and this is al-Farazdaq, and this is al-Akhtal.”

Whereupon the Bedouin declaimed:
May Allah greet Abū Ḥazrah (3),
and may your nose be rubbed in dust, O Akhtal!
And as for al-Farazdaq’s grandsire—may misfortune strike him,
may solid rock dash the cartilage of his nose!

Al-Farazdaq replied:
May Allah abase the nose you carry,
you foul-mouthed peddler of slander and folly.
You are no judge whose verdict satisfies,
nor a noble, nor a man of insight and debate.

Then al-Akhtal recited:
O worst of creatures ever borne by shin upon foot,
words such as yours about men cannot be endured.