Maymun al-Hadrami [legendary digger of a namesake well] said: I was about to make the pilgrimage when a woman I was chatting with told me:
"Come and circumambulate my house seven times, the way they do the holy House. Run your camel there, and shave your head as pilgrims do. Fling stones at my nosy neighbor, the way they stone the Devil [at Mina], and then kiss me as they kiss the cornerstone."
Maymun said: I did everything she told me. This is my poem about it (meter: basīṭ):
I resolved to make the pilgrimage, but my heart
had other plans. Beside the holy House I was intending,
there was a woman's house, the house of Juml,
and to her undraped house my steps conveyed me.
My circumambulations lacked for nothing,
all seven of them, as they do for God.
And just as pilgrims vie to throw their pebbles,
I threw mine at her neighbor with all my might.
I was to shave my head
and be made hairless,
and run my camel as they do
’til his sores go down.
Another of their rites is the kissing of the stone,
but kissing you is nothing like a stone.
If ‘Umar or ‘Uthman had been to your house
their pilgrimage would be to you alone.
Maymun said: Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Musa ibn ‘Imran al-Bakri said to me, "What induced you—God have mercy on you!—to leave out [the first caliph,] Abu Bakr, when you put ‘Umar and ‘Uthman in your poem?"
"Because people have special feelings about Abu Bakr," I said. "May God have mercy on you as well."
From Reports that Are Agreed Upon by al-Zubayr ibn Bakkar
