Al-Hajjaj bin Dhi al-Ruqaybah narrates from his father, and he from his grandfather, that Ka'b and Bujayr, the two sons of Zuhayr, set out until they reached Abraq al-Azzaf. Bujayr said to Ka'b: Stay here at this place while I go to this man, meaning the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and hear what he says. So Ka'b stayed, and Bujayr went and came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), who presented Islam to him, and he accepted Islam. When this reached Ka'b, he said: "Will you two not convey a message from me to Bujayr: to what, woe to someone other than you, has he guided you? To a way of life on which you found neither mother nor father, nor did you find a brother of yours upon it. Abu Bakr gave you a drink from a brimming cup, and al-Ma'mun gave you a first draught of it and then a second." When these verses reached the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he declared Ka'b's blood lawful and said: "Whoever meets Ka'b, let him kill him." Bujayr wrote of this to his brother, telling him that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had declared his blood lawful, and saying to him: Save yourself! Though I do not think you will escape. Then after that he wrote to him: Know that no one comes to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) bearing witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah except that he accepts it from him and drops whatever came before it. So when this letter of mine reaches you, accept Islam and come. So Ka'b accepted Islam and composed the ode in which he praises the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Then he came until he made his camel kneel at the door of the mosque of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and then entered the mosque. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was with his Companions, in the midst of the people like a dining spread, and they were sitting around him in circles, one circle within another; he would turn to these at one time and talk with them, and to those at another and talk with them. Ka'b said: I made my camel kneel at the door of the mosque, and I recognized the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) by the description (I had been given), so I stepped over the people until I sat by him and accepted Islam, and I said: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah; (grant me) safety, O Messenger of Allah! He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "And who are you?" I said: I am Ka'b bin Zuhayr. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "The one who says" - then he turned to Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) and said: "How did he say it, O Abu Bakr?" So Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) recited to him: "Abu Bakr gave you a drink from a brimming cup, and al-Ma'mun (the trusted one) gave you a first draught of it and then a second." Ka'b said: O Messenger of Allah, I did not say it like that. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Then how did you say it?" He said: I only said: "Abu Bakr gave you a drink from a brimming cup, and al-Ma'mur (the one commanded by Allah) gave you a first draught of it and then a second." So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "By Allah, (he is indeed) commanded." Then he recited the whole ode to him until he reached its end. (The narrator says:) Al-Hajjaj bin Dhi al-Ruqaybah dictated it to me until he reached its end, and this is the ode: Su'ad has departed, so today my heart is stricken with love, enslaved to her, a captive in fetters who has not been ransomed. And Su'ad, on the morning of parting when they set off, was nothing but a soft-voiced gazelle with lowered gaze and eyes dark as with kohl. When she smiles she reveals gleaming, moist teeth, as though they had been given a first and a second draught from the cup, over which the cup-bearers had poured water from the bend of a valley, water of a pebbly streambed cooled by the north wind at evening; the winds sweep the specks away from it, and white rain-clouds of a morning shower have filled it to the brim. What a friend she would be, had she only kept her promise, and had good counsel been accepted! But she is a friend in whose blood are mixed the causing of grief, lying, breaking of promises and change. She does not stay in any one state she is in, just as the ghoul changes colours in her garments. Nor does she hold to the bond she claimed, except as sieves hold water. The promises of Urqub were her model, and her promises are nothing but falsehoods. So do not be deceived by the hopes she held out and the promises she made; indeed hopes and dreams are a delusion. Su'ad is now in a land that none can reach except noble, pure-bred, easy-paced she-camels, and none will bring one there except a sturdy she-camel that, despite fatigue, keeps up a quick trot and an ambling pace; of every one whose neck behind the ears streams with sweat, whose aim is an unknown road with its waymarks effaced. The tick walks on her, then her smooth breast and flanks make it slip off. She is sturdy as a wild ass, packed with flesh on every side, and her elbow is twisted clear of her breast-ribs. It is as if what lies beyond her eyes and throat, of her muzzle and her two jaws, were an oblong stone. She swings a tail like a stripped palm-branch, with tufts, over an udder whose teats have not wasted it. She is aquiline-nosed; in her two ears the discerning see clear signs of noble breed, and her cheeks are smooth. She trots on nimble, lean legs as if at play, their touching the ground as light as the fulfilling of an oath. She is lean and hard; her father is her brother, from a noble-bred dam, and her paternal uncle is her maternal uncle; she is long-necked and swift. Her hoof-sinews are dark, leaving the pebbles scattered; no shoeing shields them from the sharp edges of the hillocks. On a day when the humps of the land are lifted up by the shimmering mirage, now merging and now separating, the motion of her forelegs, after she is drenched in sweat and the hillocks are wrapped in the mirage, is like the arm movements of a grey-haired, bereaved woman wailing, answered by other grey-haired, bereaved women who have stood up with her; she is lamenting, loose in her upper arms, and when the announcers of death told of her firstborn's death, she lost her senses. The misguided run about at her two sides, and their saying is: "You, son of Abu Sulma, will surely be killed." Clear the way for her forelegs, may you be fatherless! For whatever the Most Merciful has decreed will surely come to pass. Every son of a woman, however long his safety lasts, will one day be carried on a humped bier. I was told that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) threatened me (with punishment), yet it is pardon that is hoped for from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). I have come to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) seeking pardon, and an excuse is accepted by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Gently, O messenger of the One who gave you the gift of the Qur'an, in which are admonitions and detailed explanation! Do not seize me on the words of slanderers; I have committed no crime, however many the sayings spread about me. I stand in such a place that, if the elephant stood there and saw and heard what I see and hear, it would keep trembling, unless it had, by Allah's leave, a grant of favour from the Messenger. Until I placed my right hand, never to withdraw it, in the palm of one who has the power to punish, whose word is the final word. He was more fearsome to me, as I spoke to him and it was said: "You are known by your lineage and will be called to account," than a lion in his lair with interlocking fangs, whose home is in the valley of Aththar, thicket beyond thicket, who goes out at dawn and feeds two lion cubs, beside whom lies human flesh scattered in shreds. Because of him the wild asses stay lean, and men on foot do not walk in his valley, and in his valley there always lies some trusted brave man with his weapons and worn garments cast aside, devoured. Indeed, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is a light from which illumination is sought, and a sharp, drawn sword from among the swords of Allah, among young men of Quraysh, one of whom said in the valley of Makkah when they accepted Islam: Emigrate! They departed, and those who departed were not weaklings, nor without shields at the time of combat, nor unarmed men swaying on their mounts. They are lofty-nosed heroes whose garments in battle are coats of mail woven by Dawud (peace be upon him): gleaming, ample coats of mail whose rings are linked together like the twisted rings of the qaf'a plant. They walk as mature, strong camels walk, and their sword-strokes protect them when the dark, short men flee. They do not exult when their spears strike a people, nor are they distressed when they themselves are struck. The spear-thrust falls only on their breasts, and they never hang back from the pools of death.