Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

Obviously, these huge sums indicate to the importance these poems enjoyed
according to the Khalīfah al-Mahdī.
What is noteworthy in the above poem is that he alluded to the Imāmah of ʿAbbās
by way of emphatic appointment. He also warned the Alawids of the bloodbath
which was impending if they tried to question the legitimacy of the rule of the
Abbasids.
Yet in another poem he says:
علي أبوكم كان أفضل منكمو
وساء رسول الله إذ ساء بنته
فذم رسول الله صهر أبيكمو
وحكم فيها من بعده الحسن ابنه
وخليتموها وهي في غير أهلها
أباه ذوو الشورى وكانوا ذوي فضل
بخطبته بنت اللعين أبي جهل
على منبر بالمنطق الصادع الفصل
فقد أبطال دعواكمو الرثة الحبل
وطالبتموها حين صارت إلى الهل
ʿAlī, your father, was more virtuous than you. But the members of the
council denied him and they were people of virtue.
And it hurt Rasūl Allah H due to hurting his daughter that he proposed
to the daughter of the accursed Abū Jahl.
Rasūl Allah H condemned the marital relatives of your father upon
the pulpit with a speech which was powerful and decisive.
And your father appointed two arbitrators in it (Ṣiffīn) who removed him
just as a person with shoes removes his shoes.
Thereafter al-Ḥasan, his son, gave it away and thus they have nullified your
weak and tenuous claim.
You left it when it was in the hands of those who were not deserving of it.
And now you demand it when it is in the hands of those who deserve it. 1
1 Al-Aghānī 23/214; Sharḥ Nahj al-Balāghah of Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd 4/65; Baḥr al-ʿUlūm: al-Fawāʾid al-
Rijāliyyah 1/89.
386