the foremost of his companions, and he had disciples who were known as the Salimiyya. People kept their distance from them because of certain offensive expressions they had coined and circulated.

Abū Nuʿaym says in “The Ornament of the Saints”: “Among them is Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Sālim al-Baṣrī, companion of Sahl al-Tustarī and the custodian of his words. We met him, and he had followers of his own.”

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī relates: “I heard Ibn Sālim say, ‘I heard Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh say: A servant’s heart will not be upright until he cuts off every stratagem and every cause that is other than Allah.’”

He also reported Sahl as saying: “Whenever Allah looks at a heart and finds in it a preoccupation with the world, He loathes it; and loathing it means that He leaves the person to himself.”

Abū Naṣr al-Ṭūsī said: “I asked Ibn Sālim about wajl (trembling awe). He replied, ‘It is the heart’s standing erect before Allah.’ I then asked him about self-admiration (ʿujb), and he said, ‘It is to deem your deed pleasing and to take pride in your obedience.’ I asked, ‘Can a person really refrain from admiring his prayer and fasting?’ He answered, ‘Yes, when he is aware of his shortcomings in them and the defects that find their way into them.’”

I say: The Salimiyya hold an innovation that I do not recall at the moment; it can lead to a specific notion of indwelling (ḥulūl), and this is mentioned in al-Qūt.

Ibn Sālim died at nearly ninety years of age, sometime in the mid-350s AH.

194 – Ibn Sharak, Abū Hāmid Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Harawī *
The erudite scholar and ḥāfiẓ, Abū Hāmid Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Sharak al-Harawī