my son, by the right I have over you, do come back to me, for I cannot bear to be parted from you.’
He said: I awoke in distress and resolved to consult the shaykh. I went to Saʿd, but because of the crowd I could not speak to him. When he rose to leave, I followed him; he turned to me and said, ‘Abū al-Muẓaffar, the old woman is waiting for you.’
He then entered his house, and I realized that he had read my situation, so I returned that very year (1).
Thābit ibn Aḥmad said: I saw Abū al-Qāsim al-Zanjānī in a dream, telling me again and again, ‘Allah builds for the people of hadith—for every session they hold—a house in Paradise’ (2).
Abū Saʿd said: Saʿd was a meticulous ḥāfiẓ, reliable, scrupulous, devoted to abundant worship, and a man endowed with miracles and extraordinary signs. Whenever he entered the Haram, the area around the Kaʿbah would clear, and people kissed his hand more often than they kissed the Black Stone (3).
Ibn Ṭāhir said: I have never seen his like. I heard Abū Isḥāq al-Ḥabbāl say, ‘There was no one on earth equal to Saʿd ibn ʿAlī in excellence. He would attend our gatherings; mistakes would be read in his presence, yet he would not correct them unless asked, and then he would reply’ (4).
Ibn Ṭāhir also said: I heard the jurist Hayyāj ibn ʿUbayd, Imām and mufti of the Haram, declare, ‘A day in which I do not see Saʿd, I do not count as a day on which I have done any good.’
Hayyāj used to perform ʿumrah three times in a single day (5).