and even the sea draws from it.
How astonishing that the letters could coil upon the parchment, while his ten fingertips had never been trained to grasp a pen at all!

He also said—may Allah curse him:

[al-Ṭawīl]
His side-locks have tinged the colour of his cheek,
shimmering like a shadow seen through glass.
You behold an army of Byzantines riding the breeze—
ever since its vanguard (1) appeared it hastens toward the day of tumult.
Or is it dawn, brocaded upon a radiant night,
like ebony traced upon a page of ivory?
His temples grew jealous of the rose of his cheek,
so they fenced it round with a hedge of hair.

al-Ṭāwūsī, master of the ṭarīqa (2): al-ʿIrāqī ibn Muḥammad (3) ibn al-ʿIrāqī, Rukn al-Dīn Abū al-Faḍl al-Qazwīnī, later al-Hamadhānī, known as al-Ṭāwūsī.
He was outstanding in the science of khilāf, dialectics, and disputation (4). He learned this discipline (5) from Shaykh Riḍā al-Dīn al-Nīsābūrī the Ḥanafī, and authored three treatises on the subject. Ibn Khallikān (6) said: the finest of them is the middle one. Students made the journey to Hamadhān to study under him, and one of the court chamberlains (7) built for him there a school known as al-Ḥājibiyya. He died in this very year. It is also said that he was descended from Ṭāwūs ibn Kaysān, the Successor—Allah (8) knows best.

The editing of this volume of Ibn Kathīr’s al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah was completed on the morning of Sunday, the fifth of Dhū al-Ḥijjah 1406 AH, corresponding to 10 August 1986 CE. Praise be to Allah before and after.