from Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī, who had associated with Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī, with al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, with ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—and with the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him (1).
187 – ʿImrān ibn Shāhīn, the “King of the Marshes” *
He was wanted for bloodshed, so he fled to the Marshland (al-Baṭīḥa) and sought refuge among its reed-beds, living by catching fish and fowl. Fishermen began to join him, then bandits gathered around him, until his power became formidable and his following large. He built strongholds and secured his position, and the government proved unable to subdue him. They fought him but could not overcome him. ʿIzz al-Dawla campaigned against him more than once, yet they never captured him, and he eventually died in his bed in the year 369 AH. His rule had lasted forty years. After him his son al-Ḥasan governed for a time, but he undertook to pay an annual tribute to ʿAḍud al-Dawla.
188 – al-Laythī, Abū ʿĪsā Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yaḥyā **
The eminent, reliable imam, the chief ḥadith transmitter of al-Andalus, Abū ʿĪsā Yaḥyā ibn
(1) In "al-Maqasid al-hasana", p. 331, the hadith concerning the wearing of the Sufi *khirqa* (patched cloak) and the claim that al-Hasan al-Basri received it from Ali is judged false by Ibn Dihya and Ibn al-Salah. Our teacher—al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar—likewise states that none of its transmission lines is reliable: no sound, fair, or even weak report affirms that the Prophet clothed any Companion with the *khirqa* in the manner later adopted by the Sufis, nor that he instructed anyone to do so. Any narration explicitly asserting this is fabricated. He further notes that it is a blatant lie to say that Ali invested al-Hasan al-Basri with the *khirqa*, for the foremost hadith critics do not even confirm that al-Hasan heard directly from Ali, much less that he received the cloak from him. Ibn Hajar is not alone in this judgment; he was preceded by several scholars such as al-Dimyati, al-Dhahabi, al-Hakkari, Abu Hayyan, al-‘Ala’i, Mughaltay, al-‘Iraqi, Ibn al-Mulqin, al-Ibnasi, al-Burhan al-Halabi, and Ibn Nasir al-Din, the last of whom wrote a separate treatise on the matter.
(*) Tajrib al-Umam, 6/119; al-Kamil by Ibn al-Athir, 8/481–485, 489, 490 and elsewhere; al-Mukhtasar fi Akhbar al-Bashar, 2/121; Ibn Khaldun, 3/423; 4/437, 505.
(* *) Tarikh ‘Ulama al-Andalus, 2/191–192; al-‘Ibar, 2/346; al-Dibaj al-mudhahhab, 2/357–358; Shadharat al-dhahab, 3/65.