• Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥārith al-Dhimārī.
• Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd Abū Ḥayyān al-Taymī.
• Ruʾbah ibn al-ʿAjjāj (1): al-ʿAjjāj is a sobriquet; his proper name is Abūʾl-Shaʿthāʾ ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ruʾbah, also called Abū Muḥammad al-Tamīmī al-Baṣrī, a composer of rajaz verse and the son of a rajaz poet. Each of the two—father and son—left a dīwān of rajaz, and each was a consummate master of his craft, unassailable and beyond dispute, well-versed in the Arabic language.
• ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (2): the eloquent secretary who embraced Islam at the hands of ʿĪsā ibn ʿAlī, the uncle of al-Saffāḥ and al-Manṣūr, and thereafter served him as scribe. He authored several epistles, wrote with impeccable diction, and was accused of zandaqa (heresy). He is the one who produced the book Kalīlah wa Dimnah; some say, rather, that he translated it from Persian into Arabic.

Al-Mahdī said, “No book of zandaqa has ever been found whose source is not Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.”

Al-Jāḥiẓ said, “The zanādiqah are three: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, Muṭīʿ ibn Iyās, and Yaḥyā ibn Ziyād.”

People retorted, “Al-Jāḥiẓ forgot himself—he is the fourth of them!” Yet, despite the charge, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ remained a distinguished, gifted, and fluent man.

Al-Aṣmaʿī related that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was asked, “Who refined your manners?” He replied, “My own self: whenever I observed something ugly in others, I rejected it; whenever I saw something good, I adopted it.”

Among his sayings: “I drank deeply from the well of speeches but never mastered their rhyme; they ebbed, then overflowed—neither are they orderly verse, nor are they anything else but words.”

Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was executed by Sufyān ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn Yazīd ibn al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufrah, the governor of Baṣrah. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ had mocked him and cursed his mother, habitually calling him “son of the adulteress.” Sufyān had a prominent nose, and whenever Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ entered upon him he would tauntingly greet him with al-salāmu ʿalaykumā (“peace be upon you two”). On one occasion he said to Sufyān, “Never have I regretted keeping silent.” Sufyān retorted, “True; dumbness would serve you better than your speech.”

It then happened that al-Manṣūr became angry with Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and wrote to his deputy, this same Sufyān ibn Muʿāwiyah, ordering him to kill him. Sufyān seized him, heated an oven, and began cutting him limb by limb, throwing each piece into the oven until he burned him completely, while the victim looked on as his members were severed and consumed by the fire. Other versions of his death have also been reported.

Ibn Khallikān said: Some maintain that the name Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ derives from his having sold qufāʿ—baskets woven from palm fronds, like a zanbīl but without handles (3). The correct view is that he was indeed “Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ,” whose kunya was Abū Dādawayh. Al-Ḥajjāj had appointed him over the land tax, but he embezzled, so al-Ḥajjāj punished him until his hands became shriveled. Allah knows best.