With that same chain, Abū Sahl al-Ḥanafī recited to us some verses of his own (1):
I drowse in heedlessness while the ring-doves weep;
They bear no blame, yet from me the sins proceed.
You lie—by the House of Allah!—had you possessed true sense,
Those doves would never have outstripped me in their tears.
Al-Ḥākim said: Abū Sahl died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of the year 369 AH.
I add: In the same year there also died: the shaykh of the gnostics, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Rūdhbārī, in Ṣūr, who had narrated from al-Baghawī; the senior Ḥanbalī authority Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad ibn Shāqilā al-Bazzāz in Baghdad, in mid-life; the ḥāfiẓ Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Zaʿfarānī in Isfahan; the interpreter of dreams Ruḥaym ibn Saʿīd al-Dimashqī, the blind scholar—he was the last to transmit from Abū Zurʿah al-Dimashqī—and he died at the age of 107; the leading transmitter of Baghdad, Abū Muḥammad ibn Māsi al-Bazzāz; the judge of Damascus, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Rāshid ibn Ukht Walīd al-Baghdādī; the ḥāfiẓ Abū Shaykh in Isfahan; the chief judge, Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī ibn Umm Shaybān al-ʿAbbāsī in Baghdad; the ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sahl al-Ghazzāl in Isfahan; the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Naqqāsh in Tinnīs; and Abū ʿAlī Makhlad ibn Jaʿfar al-Bāqirḥī—we have heard the reports of his teachers.