457 – Muhammad ibn Qudāmah al-Jawharī narrated to me, saying: Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad al-Thaqafī narrated to us, saying: I heard al-Qāsim ibn Ghazwān recount that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (may Allah have mercy on him) would often recite these verses (in the Ṭawīl metre):

Are you awake today, or are you lying asleep?—
Yet how can a lost, bewildered wanderer find slumber?

Had you truly awakened this very morning,
Torrents of scorching tears would have burned your eyes.

Instead you have sunk into a long, unbroken sleep,
While fearful, momentous events draw ever nearer.

Your daytime, O self-deluded one, is heedlessness and distraction;
Your night is mere slumber—death stays constantly beside you.

You are beguiled by what will perish and absorbed in idle hopes,
Like the dreamer deceived by pleasures he tastes in sleep.

You busy yourself with matters whose aftermath you will loathe;
Such is the way the cattle live out their lives in this world.