was generous and of upright character. A curious incident is related about him: he sent to Baghdad and a singing slave-girl was bought for him at a large price. When she arrived, he entertained his companions and ordered her to sing. The girl—who was in love with a man in Baghdad—sang:
When passion, thought long healed, burst open anew,
A lightning flash flared, its brilliance grown faint;
It shone like the lining of a cloak, yet before it
Rose a peak hard to scale, its buttresses unyielding.
He tried to gaze upon that flash but could not endure
The sight; his sorrows turned his eyes away.
Fire was what his ribs contained within,
And water was all that his eyelids gave.
She then sang further lines, and Tamīm’s delight grew so intense that he said to her, “You must ask me for a favor.” She replied, “Your continued well-being.” He said, “And besides that?” He pressed her until she said, “Send me back to Baghdad so that I may sing these verses there.” He was taken aback ⦗1⦘, yet he could not escape fulfilling her request ⦗2⦘. Accordingly, he sent her off with some of his attendants: he first brought her on pilgrimage, then travelled with her toward Baghdad along the Iraqi route. On the night before they were to enter the city she slipped away under cover of darkness, and no one knew where she had gone. When the news reached her master he was deeply pained and overcome by bitter remorse ⦗3⦘—when remorse could no longer avail him.
Ibn Khallikān relates that when Tamīm died his body was wrapped in eighty brocade garments and that their qadi officiated at the burial. I add: this is sheer extravagance brought about by ignorance of the Sacred Law ⦗4⦘.
Al-ʿAqīqī ⦗5⦘: Owner of the bathhouse and residence bearing his name in the Bāb al-Barīd quarter of Damascus—Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAqīqī ibn Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Aṣghar ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, the ḥasanid noble Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusaynī.
Ibn ʿAsākir says that he was one of the leading notables of Damascus and that the house and bathhouse in the Bāb al-Barīd quarter are attributed to him ⦗6⦘. He records that al-ʿAqīqī died on Tuesday, four days into Jumādā al-Ūlā of this very year ⦗7⦘, and that he was buried the next day. The city closed its gates for his funeral, which was attended by Bikjūr, the acting governor, and his entourage, and he was laid to rest outside Bāb al-Ṣaghīr.