March 25, 2019

An imbecile from the Age of Ignorance

Another imbecile was ‘Ijl ibn Lujaym ibn Mus‘ab ibn ‘Ali ibn Bakr ibn Wa’il. One example of his idiocy is that when asked, "What do you call your horse?" he stood before it, put out one of its eyes and said, "I call him al-A‘war." And al-‘Anazi said (meter: tawil):

    The Banu ‘Ijl accuse me of their patriarch's malady.
        But what man was ever dumber than ‘Ijl?
    It was their patriarch who made his steed half-blind, when
        into a byword for idiocy he made their name.

From Reports of Imbeciles and Simpletons by Ibn al-Jawzi (Ibid).