128 – ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; ʿUmar ibn Abī Muʿādh likewise informed me; he said: Abū Ghassān Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Kinānī related:

Ibn Salm the poet arrived—claiming to be a client of the house of Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿUbayd Allah—at the court of Ḥarb ibn Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah, where he proclaimed this eulogy:

When I reached their thresholds and met Ḥarb, I met success.
We found him besieged by every petitioner, yet he meets hardship only with generosity.
They are visited so often that even their dog, awed by the rustle of garments, forgets to bark.

Ibn Salm continued: “He then sent me a bundle of garments and a purse. His messenger set the bundle down and apologized for the smallness of what he had been charged to deliver, saying, ‘I am embarrassed to tell you what I was entrusted with; when you rise, take it from beneath your mattress.’ Under the mattress he had placed one thousand dinars.”