There was a Hanafi jurist named Baqbaq who installed himself at the Mustansiriyya Madrasa, and when the professor Kamal al-Din ibn al-Ibari died a few days later, Ibn al-Maghribi composed this mawali about him:
Can you recite from memory a thousand rulings by Quduri?
How about a thousand lines of Abu Hafs?
[Ibn al-Ibari was equal to it,] but without cribsheets
old Baqbaq gets lost
You're a bird of evil omen in human form,
and bad vibes are your only share
If you'd only pull up stakes and travel on—
Hey screech owl! Disappear to anywhere
And in jest he addressed these verses to a friend of his (meter: sarī‘):
Well done, my hoopoe of Bilqis!
Well done, my permit of Iblis!
My spy amid the sodomites
and to the youth my go-between!
Up now, to the monastery!
Drink with me to clanging bells,
where liquid gold that flows in cups
is ransomed by what's hard and cold
The branches on the spreading tree
are clothed in beauty, don't you see?
When joy comes for your frowny face
the cloud of gloom above our heads
will be made shade of wings of doves
and peacock tails in fans outspread
From Choice Notices of the Historical Record by Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi
