Muhammad ibn al-Zayyat

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, better known as Ibn al-Zayyāt (Arabic: ابن الزيات), was a wealthy merchant who became a court official and served as vizier of the Abbasid caliphs al-Mu'tasim, al-Wathiq, and al-Mutawakkil, from 836 until his downfall and death by torture in 847. Quotes يَقولُ لي الخلّانُ لَو زُرتَ قَبرَهافَقُلتُ وَهَل غَيرَ الفُؤادِ لَها قَبرُ Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem (curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas),Dixi autem, An ideo aliud praeter hoc pectus habet sepulchrum? My companions said to me, if I would visit the grave of my lover, I might somewhat alleviate my worries.I answered, "could she be buried elsewhere than in my heart?" Elegy written on the death of a beautiful girl whom he had loved. Reported in Arabic and Latin by d'Herbelot, and repeated by Sir William Jones, Works, vol. 2 (1799) p. 520. First line of the Latin used by Edgar Allan Poe as epigraph to "Berenice" (1835). See: Michael Beard, "The Epigraph to Poe's 'Berenice'", American Literature, vol. 49, no. 4 (1978) pp. 611–13 External links Category:840s deaths Category:Arabs Category:Executed people