[9] From an early age Abū Dulaf's poetic talents won him favour with the Abbāsid caliph Harun al-Rashid, who appointed him governor of Jabal.
He suppressed raids by nomadic Kurds and Bedouin Arabs against the city of Karaj, and captured the famous qarqur brigand that operated in the area.
As governor during the successive reigns of al-Ma’mūn, Al-Mu'tasim and the emir Al-Wāthiq, he expanded the territory to include Isfahan and Qazvin, and repelled Daylamite attacks.
When ten sharīf[n 7] travel from Khurāsān to visit Abū Dulaf on his deathbed, he rewards them in return for a written statement of the genealogy of each; "the son of such a one, etc., the son of Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib by Fāṭima the daughter of the Apostle of God," and a declaration that read: "‘Apostle of God’, that, in relief of my distress and misery in my native town, Abū Dulaf al-Ijlī gave two thousand pieces of gold for thy favour and intercession.’” [10]
In a further account about a dream of Abū Dulaf's son's, the son meets his father in some afterlife world called the Barzakh,[n 8] and his father says:If after death we were left (in peace), death would be a repose for all the living beings; but when we die we are raised up again and questioned respecting all we have done.Among his books were: Several accounts tell of the lavish beneficence Abū Dulaf bestowed on poets, who recompensed him in eulogy, or qaṣīdah, celebrating his military prowess.