Commander of the Faithful, and Joseph would never eat his fill in times of drought, lest he forget the hungry (1). ’Umar, for his part, used to strike his belly during the Year of the Ashes, saying, “Growl, or do not growl; by Allah, I shall not taste (2) butter or rich meat until the people prosper.”

He (Ibn al-Jawzī) said: al-Mustadīʾ wept, gave away a large sum in charity (3), released the prisoners, and clothed a multitude of the poor.

Ibn al-Jawzī was born, as noted earlier, around the year 510 AH, and he passed away on the night preceding Friday, between the two ‘ishā’ prayers, on the twelfth of Ramadan that same year (4 / 5). He was eighty-seven years old. His bier was borne aloft on the shoulders of the people, and the gathering was extraordinarily large. He was buried at Bāb Ḥarb beside his father, near Imām Aḥmad; it was a day long remembered, and it was even said (6) that a number of people broke their fast because of the intense heat and the crushing crowd (may Allah have mercy on him). By his own instruction there was inscribed on his grave (7) these verses (8), in the mujazʾ of the kāmil metre:

O You who pardon so abundantly … one whose sins are abundant (9)
The sinner has come to You hoping … that You will overlook the crime of his hands;
I am a guest, and the guest’s … due is gracious treatment.

Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn al-Jawzī (10) had three sons:
• ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, his eldest, who died young, during his father’s lifetime, in the year fifty-four.
• Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī, who was undutiful to his father and openly hostile to him during the ordeal and afterwards; in his father’s absence at Wāsiṭ he seized his books and sold them (11) for the lowest of prices (12).
• Muḥyī al-Dīn Yūsuf, the most gifted and the youngest of his children. He was born in the year eighty, preached after his father’s death, and devoted himself