Ahmad b. Jaʿfar b. Mūsā b. Yaḥyā b. Khālid b. Barmak al-Barmakī. His kunyah (teknonym) was Abū'l-Ḥasan al-Nadīm. He was known as the poet Cahza.
He was a masterful literary figure and historian. He was well-versed in various sciences and knowledgeable about obscure matters. He sang beautiful songs. Let us give examples from his poetry:
"The world spoke to itself thus, but if there is anyone in the universe who hears:
Many a person with aspirations whose hopes were in vain.
Many a person who gathered wealth, but what they collected was scattered."
One of the rulers sent a note to a moneychanger to pay him a sum. However, when the poet Cahza did not collect this money, he wrote a letter to the ruler explaining the situation as follows:
"If your gifts come by notes written with fingertips and hands,
Then these notes are of no benefit to me.
I, too, write to you: 'Take one million dirhams.'"
The poet Cahza satirized one of his friends who was very stingy and greedy as follows:
"We have a friend; he is the highest among people in stinginess.
He was named Fadl, but he is not virtuous.
Just as a friend invites a friend, he invited me.
Like a friend going to another friend, I went to him.
When we sat down to eat, I saw that he
Looked at me as if I were about to eat one of the organs of his body.
Sometimes he got angry, sometimes he cursed his servant.
I understood that he was angry and cursing solely because of me.
I secretly extended my hand to the table to take a bite.
But seeing that he looked at me angrily, I played with the vegetables to pass the time.
Then my hand committed a crime (that is, I ate a bite).
This happened because hunger made me lose my mind.
My hand reached for a chicken thigh.
He acted faster and pulled the thigh to himself, and my hands pulled my foot."
One of his powerful poems is also this:
"You have departed, and after many groans and lamentations, people clearly understood that I grieved for you.
Before, I had freed my eyelashes from weeping.
But now my longing for you has enslaved them again."
Ibn Ḥallikān also transmitted this beautiful and brilliant poem of his: "I said to the beloved: You were stingy with me while awake;
At least be generous with me in dreams.
My beloved said to me: You will also sleep, and do you expect me to visit you in a dream?"
The person who gave him the nickname Cahza was ʿAbdallāh b. al-Muʿtaẓ, because his eyes were very ugly.
One of Cahza's detractors said:
"When Cahza sleeps, his eyes bulge out more than the bishop and the crab in chess. Those who sit at the drinking table at night with him, I pity you!
Endure the affliction of your eyes to delight your ears."
Cahza died in the year 326 AH in Wasīṭ. There is also a report that he died in 324 AH.