and the discipline of juristic disagreement as well. He listened to hadith, studied belles-lettres with Abū Zakariyyā al-Tibrīzī, and devoted himself to preaching until he excelled in it. Thereafter he clung to seclusion, rigorous spiritual exercise, striving, wandering, and dwelling in deserted ruins and open wastes. He kept the company of al-Dabbās. Then Allah made him known to people and placed immense acceptance for him in their hearts. He inaugurated his public preaching circle in the year 521 AH, and Allah caused wisdom to flow from his tongue. He went on to teach and issue legal verdicts, and people journeyed to him with vows and for visitation. He composed works on both legal fundamentals and subsidiary rulings, and his discourse in the idiom of the Sufi path is of a lofty order.

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Ḥasan al-Jubbāʾī wrote to me: “Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir said to me, ‘One day my lower self demanded a sensual desire. I grew vexed with it, darting into one alley and out another, heading for the open desert. I came upon a slip of paper lying on the ground, and on it was written: “What have the strong to do with passions? Passions were created only for the weak.” At that, the desire left my heart.’

“He also said, ‘I used to subsist on the thorny carob pods and lettuce leaves that grew by the riverbank (1).’ ”

Ibn al-Najjār relates: “I read, in the handwriting of Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh ibn Naṣr ibn Ḥamzah al-Taymī, the following: I heard Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir say, ‘During a time of soaring prices my hardship became so severe that I went several days without eating, content to scavenge whatever had been thrown away. One day I went down to the riverbank, only to find that the poor had already preceded me. I weakened and could no longer maintain my composure, so I entered a mosque and sat down, almost shaking hands with death. A young foreigner came in carrying bread and roast meat, sat, and began to eat. Each time he raised a morsel I was on the verge of opening my mouth. He turned, saw me, and said, “In the name of Allah.” I refused, but he adjured me, so I ate a little.

“‘He then asked me, “What is your occupation? Where are you from?”

“‘I replied, “A student of jurisprudence from Gīlān.”

“‘He said, “I too am from Gīlān. Do you know a young Gīlānī named ʿAbd al-Qādir, known as the grandson of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣawmaʿī the ascetic?”

“‘I said, “I am he.”

“‘At this he trembled and his color changed…’ ”