He said (1): This al-Ṣāliḥ is the one who built the congregational mosque (2) by Bāb Zuwayla on the outskirts of Cairo.
He also said (3): Among the remarkable coincidences is that he assumed the vizierate on the nineteenth of a month, was killed on the nineteenth of a month, was carried from the vizierial residence to the Qarafa cemetery on the nineteenth of another month (4), and his family’s rule came to an end on the nineteenth of yet another month.
He further said (5): Of his poetry, as transmitted from him by the preacher Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Najā (6) the Ḥanbalī, are the following lines (7):
[in the Wāfir metre]
Your grey hair has stripped away the hue of youth (8),
The falcon has now alighted in the raven’s nest.
You sleep while the vigilant eye of Time keeps watch,
And not a single calamity that strikes mankind spares you.
How can your life—your precious treasure—endure
When you have spent of it without reckoning?
And he also said (9):
[in the Kāmil metre]
(10) How many events does Time unveil to us—
Lessons—while we persist in turning away and ignoring?
We forget death, and its mention does not circulate among us (11),
Until sickness descends and reminds us of it.
Among his fine poetry as well is his saying (12):
[in the Ṭawīl metre]
(1) Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 2, p. 529.
(2) Al-Maqrīzī states: “It was known as the Banu Ubayd Allah Mosque, the Qubba Mosque, and the ‘Aza’ (Mourning) Mosque. The one built by the ṣāliḥ Tala’iʾ ibn Ruzayk, vizier of Egypt, had upper-story balconies and a finely crafted structure; it remained in use and inhabited well beyond 800 AH.” (Al-Maqrīzī, Khitāt al-Maqrīzī, Bulaq ed., vol. 2, p. 446.)
(3) Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 2, p. 520.
(4) The alif-madda (â) reading stands alone.
(5) Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 2, p. 527.
(6) In Wafayāt al-A‘yān his full name is given as Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Najjah ibn Ghanā’im al-Anṣārī, nicknamed Zayn al-Dīn and known as Ibn Nujaylah, the renowned preacher of Damascus. His biography appears under 599 AH in this volume.
(7) The verses appear in Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 2, p. 527, and in Marāʾat al-Jinān, vol. 3, p. 311.
(8) ed.: Muḥyī.
(9) ed.: the conjunction wa (“and”) is included; it does not occur in MS B.
(10) The two lines are in Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 2, p. 526, and in Marāʾat al-Jinān, vol. 3, pp. 310–311.
(11) â̄: “tansā.”
(12) According to Ibn al-Athīr (vol. 9, p. 75), there are five lines, with the addition of the following two couplets:
“Our villages, whenever we set out once for war, lie exposed—among their visitors are the wolf and the vulture.
Likewise, in times of peace we exert our utmost—yet both slave and freeman alike feed upon our herds.”