and he called God to witness his repentance and return from everything he had done in the service of the rulers. He told the people that, from the day he first came of age until that very moment, he had lived only on the wealth of his father and grandfather (1); what compromised him was socializing with the sultan, and of that too he now repented. Inside his residence he set aside a room that he named Dār al-Tawbah (the House of Repentance), and the scholars affixed their signatures confirming the genuineness of his contrition.

When he dictated ḥadith, the crowd was so large that several scribes were needed. Among those writing that day was the judge ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī (2), together with his peers—the leading lights of learning, the foremost masters of hadith and fiqh.

The judge of Qazwin once sent him a gift of splendid books, adding these couplets:

The ʿAmīrī—servant of Kāfī al-Kufāt,
though numbered among the leading judges—
has served the lofty assembly with volumes
whose pages brim with beauty, filled to the rim.

When the gift arrived, he kept a single book and returned the rest, writing beneath the two verses:

From the whole collection we accepted one volume
and straightway returned the remainder;
I do not seek profit in abundance—by nature I say “Take,”
for my creed has never been “Bring.”

On another occasion the vizier Ibn ʿAbbād was sitting in a drinking session. The cup-bearer handed him a goblet; as he was about to drink, one of his servants said, “My lord, what you hold is poisoned.”

“What evidence do you have?” he asked.
“Test it,” replied the servant.
“On whom?”
“On the cup-bearer.”
“Woe to you! That is not lawful.”
“Then on a chicken.”
“Mutilating an animal is forbidden.”

He thereupon ordered the contents of the cup to be poured away and said to the cup-bearer, “Do not enter my house again,” yet he did not cut off the man’s stipend.

The minister Abū al-Fatḥ ibn Dhī al-Kifāyatayn later schemed against him until he had him removed from the vizierate of Muʾayyad al-Dawlah (6) and took the office himself, holding it for a time. One evening, while his companions and boon-fellows were gathered around him and his delight was at its zenith, a gathering had been prepared for him, lavish with every pleasure—food, drink, finery, and gifts. He had composed some verses that the singers were setting to melody while he reveled in the utmost joy. They ran:

I summoned bliss and I summoned lofty rank;
when both replied, I summoned the cup. (7)