Origins of the fold-in

On the poet Abu 'l-‘Ibar al-Hashimi (d. 866 CE), by Sinan Antoon,
The Poetics of the Obscene in Premodern Arabic Poetry: Ibn al-Hajjaj
and Sukhf (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 40:

¹⁸⁹  From the Book of Songs

From the Epistle of the Two Luminaries

In his Epistle of the Two Luminaries, which is [subtitled] "From a dejected lover, to one whose love is reciprocated by another," and begins with the words: "The earth lies before the merciful king, the sultan of beauty, the lion of combat...." ‘Ala’ al-Din [Taqi al-Din] ibn al-Maghribi said (meter: majzū’ al-ramal):

   The Nile comes and goes.
       My love goes on and on.
   Nothing I say tomorrow will be enough.
       Sometimes love is too much.
   Every heart but mine
       gets the love it wants.
   I am the lone unfortunate
       going steady with rejection.

Then ‘Ala’ al-Din [Taqi al-Din] said: I am the lone unfortunate who pissed on a plate of fried doughnuts, dribbling out a vinegar stream. I crucified Iblis with his own hammer, and left him sagging and singing "Tra-la-la-la!" as he flapped his wings like a chicken (meter: majzū’ al-ramal):

   Tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la!
       You, with the eyes of a little gazelle!
   God have mercy on my slayer.
       Me it is no boast to kill.

From The Register of Ardent Love by Ibn Abi Hajala

Thieves who were poets

‘Arqal was a famous thief of the Banu Sa‘d. Along with Abu Hardaba and Mālik ibn al-Rayb, he was a thief who was a poet. His name comes from the verb ta‘arqala, which means "to be thrown into chaos," and in vulgar speech it is much in use; ‘irqāla is "one who sows chaos."

In the early Islamic period, there was an Arab highwayman of the desert called ‘Ujayl ("Speedy"), for his callousness. By my estimation, he was active when Ziyad was governor.

From The Book of Name Derivations by Ibn Durayd

       

Pussy Galore, "Dick Johnson" (1987)

The strongman and the felt

Zaveh, a village in Khorasan, was home to the famous Qotb al-Din Heydar, a most remarkable man. In summertime he would walk through fire, and in winter plunge himself in ice, and throughout the surrounding territories people came to observe these marvels. All who beheld him in the act were struck by a compulsion to renounce the world, and adopted felt clothes and went barefoot. It often happened, I have heard, that lords and princes would come, and hurl themselves from their horses at the sight of him, and put on felts. And I have seen Turkish soldiers in the flower of their fighting strength who wore the felt and went barefoot, and called themselves companions of Heydar.

Some Sufis say the shaykh was seen one day atop a high dome, too high to be scaled, and how he had climbed it was baffling to everyone. Then, on making his descent, he simply walked down as if treading level ground.

At the time the Tatars came to Zaveh, in the year 618 (= 1221 CE), the shaykh was still alive.

From The Monuments of Inhabited Lands of al-Qazwini

San Diego memories

Photo by Stephen Beachy

The asceticism of Dawud al-Ta’i

We are informed by ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad [ibn Ja‘far?] that ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-‘Abbas was informed by Salama ibn Shabib that Sahl ibn ‘Asim reported that ‘Uthman ibn Zufar said:

I was told by a cousin of Dawud al-Ta’i that he inherited twenty dinars from his father, which he spent on food and almsgiving at the rate of one dinar per year for twenty years. And he inherited a house, whose maintenance he disregarded. When one part of it fell in, he would move to another, until a corner of the house was all that remained.

We are informed by Abu Muhammad ibn Hayyan that Ishaq ibn Abi Hassan reported on the authority of Ahmad ibn Abi 'l-Hawari that Abu Sulayman al-Darani said:

Dawud al-Ta’i inherited from his mother a sum of money and a house, and he moved from room to room inside it as they fell apart around him, paying no heed to their maintenance, until every room in the house was used up. Of the money he inherited from his father, he spent all but one dinar, which paid for his winding sheet.

We are informed by Ibrahim ibn ‘Abd Allah that Muhammad ibn Ishaq said: I heard Muhammad ibn Zakariya say: I have heard it said by one of our companions that

Dawud al-Ta’i inherited twenty dinars from a patroness of his, which sufficed him until his death twenty years later.

We are informed by Ahmad ibn Ishaq that Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Mandah reported that

‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Amr said: I was asked by Muhammad ibn ‘Amir whether he ought to abandon the merchant's trade. Muhammad ibn Nu‘man and I advised that it would be better for him not to. He then wrote to his brother in Baghdad, telling him of our advice. His brother wrote back, saying:
      "Your confrères have advised you poorly. When Dawud al-Ta’i sold a piece of property that belonged to him, he was told: 'If you invested the proceeds in commerce, then something would accrue to you.' Dawud declined, saying: 'The income would run out before I do, or my life would run out before it.' So he spent the money dinar by dinar, and at his death just one dinar was left, which paid for his winding sheet."

We are informed by ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad that Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Hadhdha’ was informed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Dawraqi that 

‘Abd Allah ibn Salih ibn Muslim al-‘Ijli said: I paid a call on Dāwūd al-Ta’i as he was suffering from the illness he died of, and in his house was nothing but an earthenware crock lined with pitch, containing some dry bread. He had another vessel for his ablutions, and lying in the dust was a large brick of Shahanjani mud. This was his cushion and his pillow, and in his house was not one woven mat of any size.

From the Ornament of God's Friends of Abu Nu‘aym al-Isbahani

Public Service Announcement

القناع من سيما الرّؤساء

"The face mask is a badge of eminent people."

al-Jahiz