—
I have left the nabidh, for those who fancy nabidh,
and now I drink clear, cold water instead;
for nabidh debases the man of honour
and wraps bright faces in a veil of black.
If youth may find some licence for the cup,
what excuse is left once grey hairs appear?

al-Aṣmaʿī said: “I told him, ‘You have spoken the truth; you are the rational one, and he is the madman.’”

ʿUbaydah ibn Ḥumayd ibn Ṣuhayb (1)—Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Taymī (2), of Kūfah—was the tutor of al-Amīn. He transmitted reports from al-Aʿmash and others, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal narrated from him and spoke highly of him.

[In this same year there died]
Yaḥyā ibn Khālid ibn Barmak (3), Abū ʿAlī the vizier, father of Jaʿfar al-Barmakī. Caliph al-Mahdī placed his son Hārūn al-Rashīd in Yaḥyā’s care, so he raised him, and Yaḥyā’s wife even nursed the young Hārūn alongside al-Faḍl ibn Yaḥyā. When al-Rashīd came to power, he acknowledged Yaḥyā’s due—he would often say, “My father said … my father said ….” He entrusted Yaḥyā with the affairs of the caliphate, its minutiae and its greater matters, and this remained the case until the Barmakids were struck down: al-Rashīd executed Jaʿfar (4) and consigned Yaḥyā to prison for life, where he stayed until he died this year. Yaḥyā was generous, eloquent, and possessed of sound judgment; his conduct clearly displayed goodness and rectitude.

He once said to his sons, “Take a portion of every branch of knowledge, for whoever is ignorant of a thing becomes its enemy.”

He also told them, “Write down the finest of what you hear, memorize the finest of what you write, and speak to people with the finest of what you have memorized.”

And he would say to them, “When the world advances toward you, spend from it, for it will not last; and when it turns away, still spend from it, for it will not last.” (5)