508 – Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Sulaymān narrated to me; he reported from Ḥulayṣī ⦗219⦘ al-Ḍubaʿī, from Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah, from Qatādah, who said:

Imrān ibn Ḥiṭṭān once said to me, “I know full well that you differ with me, yet in spite of that, commit this to memory.” He then took me by the hand and recited:

— Poetry (al-baḥr al-ṭawīl) —
How long will souls be forced to drink from the cup
of Time’s calamities, while you, unmindful, romp about?

Mere dreams of sleep, or a vanishing shadow—
a discerning man is never beguiled by such.

So lay in your provisions, tirelessly, before your destined Day;
for whom—may you be reproached—are you amassing all this, if not for yourself?