with the ring. (1) When I returned home I searched through the belongings in the house and there, inside some of my clothes, was the ring.

The author of al-ʿIqd (2) is Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Rabbih ibn Ḥabīb ibn Ḥudayr ibn Sālim, Abū ʿUmar al-Qurṭubī, a client of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam of the Umayyads. He was one of the prolific men of learning, well versed in the accounts of earlier and later peoples. His book al-ʿIqd bears witness to abundant merits and a vast store of important knowledge. Yet much of his writing betrays a Shiʿi tendency and an inclination to disparage the Umayyads—something astonishing, for he was one of their clients; it would have been more fitting for him to be among their supporters rather than their detractors.

Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān said, “He also left a fine Dīwān of poetry,” and he then quoted from it verses of amorous longing for beardless youths and for women as well. (3)

He was born in Ramadan 246 AH and died in Córdoba on Sunday, the eighteenth of Jumādā al-Ūlā of this very year.

ʿUmar ibn Abī ʿUmar Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb (4) ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād ibn Zayd ibn Dirham, Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Azdī, was a Mālikī jurist and judge, the son of a judge. He acted as his father’s deputy (5) when he was twenty years old. He had memorised the Quran, the hadith, jurisprudence according to the school of Mālik, the laws of inheritance, arithmetic, language, grammar, and poetry. He compiled a Musnad, was endowed with penetrating understanding and a keen mind, possessed noble character, and wrote graceful, polished verse. His record on the bench was praiseworthy; he was just, reliable, and an exemplary imam.

Al-Khaṭīb said: “Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ṭabarī informed us: I heard al-Muʿaffā ibn Zakariyyā al-Jarīrī say: ‘We used to sit in…’”}