A people who, whenever they launder their garments, you would see them—(1)
… wearing their very houses until the washer is done.
He reached the age of one hundred and two years, yet his mind, understanding, and bodily faculties remained sound; he continued issuing legal opinions and pursuing study until he passed away in this year—may Allah Most High have mercy on him.
On one occasion he boarded a boat; when he disembarked he sprang with a leap that the young could not equal. Someone asked, “What is this, Abū al-Ṭayyib?” He replied, “These are limbs we safeguarded in youth, and they are serving us in old age.”
(2) Qāḍī al-Māwardī, author of al-Ḥāwī al-Kabīr
ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māwardī al-Baṣrī, the foremost Shafiʿi authority, produced numerous writings in legal theory and substantive law, Qur’anic exegesis, constitutional rulings, and the etiquette of religion and worldly life. He said, “I expanded the fiqh to four thousand folios”—meaning al-Ḥāwī al-Kabīr—“and I abridged it to forty folios,” namely al-Iqnāʿ. He held judicial office in many districts and was forbearing, dignified, and cultured; so meticulous was his decorum that his companions never once saw his forearm. I have set out his full biography in the Ṭabaqāt. He died this year at the age of eighty-six and was buried at Bāb Ḥarb.
Ibn Khallikān has preserved some of his poetry, among which are these lines:
The Pen of Decree has traced what is to be—(3)
so motion and stillness are all the same.
It is sheer madness on your part to toil for provision,
when even the unborn child, veiled in the womb, is provided for.
(4) Ra’īs al-Ru’asāʾ Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Musallama
ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar, Abū al-Qāsim, served as vizier to the Caliph al-Qāʾim. He first studied hadith with Abū Aḥmad al-Faradī and others, then became one of the accredited certifiers of witnesses. Al-Qāʾim appointed him as his secretary, then as vizier, bestowing upon him the titles “Chief of Chiefs, Honor of the Viziers, Beauty of Creation.” Deeply versed in many branches of knowledge, he possessed sound judgment and a keen intellect. He remained in the vizierate for twelve years and one month, until al-Basāsirī put him to death.