Muntakhab al-tawarikh 66.2.6

66.2.6

POEM. That capital city of the kingdom which thou sawest is laid waste, And that Nile of whose bounty thou heardest has become a mirage, The sky gave the head of Muhammad Yahya to ruin, And calamity attended Sinjar the lord of slaves. The fourth heaven became a house of mourning The spirit of sanctity came to condole with the Sun. His age was fifty-one years, and the duration of his reign was twenty-five years and a fraction. He was a man of kingly proportions, adorned with all excellencies and perfections, both of appearance and reality, unequalled in the sciences of astrology and astronomy and all abstruse sciences. He was the preceptor of the followers of excellence and perfection, the refuge of the seekers after piety and rectitude. Fond of poetry and of poets, he used himself to compose good verses; he never remained for an instant without the wuzu', nor did he ever take the name of God nor of the prophet, may the peace and blessing of God be upon him, without and if it chanced that the necessity arose for mentioning a name compounded of this word 'Abd, or one of the Asmau-l-husna, such as 'Abdu-llah or the others, in such a case he would confine himself to the word 'Abd (servant), for example he would call 'Abdu-l-Haiyy, 'Abdul simply. In this same way in writing letters in place of the word "huwa" when the necessity arose he used to write two Alifs side by side.