He was a Turk, a devout worshiper and ascetic. In the pre-dawn hours he heard the mu’adhdhin chanting from the minaret (1):

[metre: mujazūʾ al-raml]
O men of the night, strive hard,
for many a voice is never turned away.
None keeps the night-vigil except
one endowed with resolve and earnestness.

Makallaba wept and said to the caller, “Mu’adhdhin, give me more.” The caller replied:

The night has passed and slipped away,
and my Beloved has now appeared. (2)

Thereupon Makallaba uttered a cry that proved to be his death (3). At daybreak the townspeople gathered at his door; fortunate was the one among them (4) who managed to reach his bier. May Allah have mercy on him and honor his resting-place.

Abu Manṣūr ibn Abī Bakr (5) ibn Shujāʿ, nicknamed al-Muzaklish in Baghdad and commonly known as Ibn Nuqṭah,

would roam the Baghdad markets by day, reciting “kān-wa-kān” pieces and mawālīyā, and during the nights of Ramadan he would awaken the people for their pre-dawn meal. He was naturally witty, cheerful, and free-spirited. His brother, the ascetic Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī (6), ranked among the foremost of the righteous. Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī maintained a lodge in Baghdad that people visited; he had followers and disciples, and he never kept anything that came to him by way of gifts. One night, while his companions were fasting, he gave away a thousand dinars, leaving nothing of it for their supper (7).

The caliph’s mother wedded him to one of her special maidservants and sent her to him with a dowry of ten thousand dinars, but before the year was out they possessed nothing of it (8) save a single mortar. A beggar stopped at his door and persisted (9) in his plea, so he brought out the mortar and said, “Take this; sustain yourself with it for thirty days, do not beg from people, and do not speak ill of Allah—Exalted is He.” He (10) was truly among the choicest of the righteous.

In short, someone (11) said to his brother Abū Manṣūr, “Shame on you! You wander the markets reciting poetry while your brother is the man you know.” Abū Manṣūr instantly answered with two mawālīyā lines of his own composition, improvised on the spot (12):

[from the mawālīyā]