Al-Ḥākim related: “I heard him being asked, ‘Who are superior, the angels or the prophets?’ He replied, ‘Nearness, nearness! Those nearer to the Truth and purer are the superior.’

In Syria Abū ʿUthmān kept company with Abū al-Khayr al-Tīnātī and met Abū Yaʿqūb al-Nahrajūrī.

Al-Sulamī said: I heard him declare, “Let your reflection on creation be a reflection that yields lessons; your reflection on yourself, a reflection that yields admonition; and your reflection on the Quran, a reflection that uncovers reality.”

Allah, exalted is He, says: “Do they not pause to reflect on the Quran?” (al-Nisāʾ 4:82). By this verse He emboldened you to recite it; were it not for that, tongues would have grown weary of its recitation (1).

He also said, “Whoever allows his soul to indulge in idle hopes will find that those hopes waylay him with procrastination and lethargy (2).”

And I heard him say, “The so-called ‘sciences of subtleties’ are the sciences of devils; the safest path against self-delusion is to cling to the Sharīʿah.”

He died in 373 AH.

229 – Ibn Nubātah, Abū Yaḥyā ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Muḥammad al-Fāriqī *
The eloquent, peerless imam, the foremost preacher of his age, Abū Yaḥyā ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Nubātah al-Fāriqī, author of al-Dīwān al-Fāʾiq fī al-ḥamd wa-l-waʿẓ (The Exquisite Collection on Praise and Admonition). He served as Friday preacher in Aleppo on behalf of the ruler Sayf al-Dawlah.