99 – Abū ʿAbdallāh ibn Buḥayr narrated to us; al-Ḥasan ibn Furāt—an elder from the frontier region, renowned for his piety—told us that he once attended the gathering of al-Fazārī, i.e., Abū Isḥāq. A man came to al-Fazārī and asked, “Does a grave-robber have any chance of repentance?”

Al-Fazārī replied, “Yes, if his intention is sound and Allah knows that he is sincere.”

The man said, “I used to exhume graves and would sometimes find people whose faces were turned away from the qibla.” Al-Fazārī had no decisive answer on that point, so he wrote to al-Awzāʿī describing the grave-robber’s case. Al-Awzāʿī wrote back: “His repentance is accepted when his intention is sound and Allah knows the truthfulness of his words. As for his claim that he found some with their faces turned from the qibla, those are people who died outside the sunnah.”