By Allah, I did not leave her out of aversion (1),
and I know full well the two banks that flank her.
Yet all of her became too cramped for me,
and within her the means of livelihood would no longer assist.
She was like a friend whose nearness I yearned for,
but whose very nature kept him distant and aloof.

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (2) said: “Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Wahhāb heard hadith from Ibn al-Sammāk, wrote from him, and was reliable. Among the Mālikīs we never saw anyone more learned in jurisprudence than he.”

Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān (3) relates in al-Wafayāt: “When he reached Egypt, he acquired some wealth and his circumstances improved. Then he fell ill after eating a dish he had craved. It is reported that while tossing about he kept saying, ‘lā ilāha illā Allah (there is no god but Allah); once we have lived, we die.’ He continued:

He composed many graceful and amusing poems, among them:

I kissed a sleeping maiden and she awoke, crying,
‘Come—apply the prescribed penalty to the thief!’
I told her, ‘Indeed, I kissed you as a usurper (4),
and nothing is ruled for a usurper except restitution.
Take it back and release a sinful wrong-doer from his grievance (5);
and if you are still displeased, then a thousand more (6)!’
She replied, ‘Retribution—reason attests
that to the culprit’s heart it is sweeter than honey.’
So my right hand spent the night as the twin arches of her waist,
while my left hand lodged where the clasp meets the necklace.
She said, ‘Was it not reported (7) that you are an ascetic?’
I answered, ‘Indeed; I have ever been ascetic—toward asceticism itself.’

Among the verses Ibn Khallikān (8) cited from Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Mālikī—may Allah have mercy on him—are:

Baghdad is a pleasant abode for people of wealth,
but for the penniless it is a house of hardship and constraint.
I wandered bewildered through her alleys,
like a muṣḥaf in the house of a heretic (9).