at a frontier post, namely Alexandria, where he married a woman (1) of considerable wealth; his circumstances therefore improved, and a madrasa (2) there was endowed to him. Ibn ʿAsākir reproduced a selection of his verse, among which is the following (3), may Allah Most High have mercy on him:

[In the al-Ṭawīl metre] (4)
Do you feel safe from death’s sudden approach? … A young man’s sense of security (5) is mere ignorance, though he has seen what time can do.
Time, as it turns, flatters neither the lowest of one’s people nor their radiant lords.
How could you, when the Prophet himself has died, as have his Companions, all of his wives, and Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ (6)?

[From the poetry of the ḥāfiẓ] (7) al-Salafī that Ibn ʿAsākir cites:
O seeker of the science of hadith who maligns it (8) … your fancy (9) has strayed from the paths of guidance.
The sciences, as you know, are many, yet the most wholesome of them is the jurisprudence and knowledge of hadith.
Whoever pursues it with vigilance shoots the most perfect arrow (10) in the quest for loftiness.
Were it not for hadith and its people, the religion of the Prophet would not stand upright, and its rulings would slip away from us.
Should some pedantic sophist doubt our word, then even the least understanding on earth is his understanding (11).

[Then the year 577 AH began.]
It opened while al-Malik al-Nāṣir (12) Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn was residing in Cairo, diligently attending hadith sessions.
A letter arrived (13) from his deputy in Greater Syria, ʿIzz al-Dīn Farkhashāh, congratulating him (14) on what Allah Most High (15) had bestowed upon the people of