and al-Muntahā fī Nukat Ūlī al-Nuhā (The Ultimate in the Subtleties of the People of Insight) (1).

Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī said: “The teacher Abū al-Qāsim found no one to equal himself in perfection and brilliance. He combined the Sharīʿa and the Ḥaqīqa. His roots lay in the district of Ustuwāʾa: on his father’s side he was a Qushayrī, on his mother’s a Sulamī (2).”

Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb (3) remarked, “We wrote down hadith from him, and he was reliable. He was an excellent exhorter, graceful in his allusions, mastering the fundamentals according to the Ashʿarī school and the subsidiary rulings according to the Shāfiʿī school.

“He told me, ‘I was born in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 376 AH.’”

Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh ibn Tāj al-Umanaʾ related to us—in the year ninety-three—that Umm al-Muʾayyad Zaynab bint ʿAbd al-Raḥmān had informed him; and Abū al-Futūḥ ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Shāh al-Shādhyākhī informed us; and Zayn al-Islām Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin informed us; and Abū Nuʿaym ʿAbd al-Malik informed us; and Abū ʿAwānah reported to us; Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to us; Ibn Wahb informed us; Yūnus told me, from Ibn Shihāb; Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib narrated to me, from Abū Hurayrah:

that the Prophet ﷺ said, “While a man was driving a cow on which he had mounted, the cow turned to him and said, ‘I was not created for this; I was only created for ploughing.’”

The people exclaimed, “Glory be to Allah!” and the Prophet ﷺ added, “I believe it—so do Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.” (4)