and ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd, compiler of the extensive Tafsīr (1); ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Fallās (2); and ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm (3)—son of Badr ibn al-Jahm ibn Masʿūd ibn Asīd, a Qurashi of the Sāmī branch, descended from Sāma ibn Luʾayy. Originally from Khurasan and later a resident of Baghdad, he was counted among the celebrated poets and the respected men of piety.

He left a collected dīwān that contains many fine pieces, though it also shows a certain bias against ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may Allah be pleased with him). Al-Mutawakkil once treated him with particular favor, but later grew angry, exiled him to Khurasan, and instructed his deputy there to expose him, stripped of his clothes, for a day; the order was carried out (4).

Among his choicest verses are these (5):

A calamity beyond all calamities—
the hatred of one devoid of lineage and creed;
he makes free with your honor, which he never guarded,
and roams at will through a sanctity you preserved.

He wrote those lines about Marwān ibn Abī Ḥafṣah after the latter had lampooned him, whereupon Marwān replied in satire (6):

By your life, al-Jahm son of Badr was no poet,
nor is this ʿAlī after him who claims the art of verse;
my father was merely once a neighbor to his mother—
so when he boasted of poetry, the matter misled me.

ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm had traveled to Syria and was returning to Iraq. After passing Aleppo he was set upon by men of Banū Kalb; he fought them, was wounded, and the wound proved fatal. Among his clothes there was found (7) a slip of paper on which was written (8):