Hammad al-Dabbās; thereafter he set about calling the people to Allah. They flocked to him, and he enjoyed enormous acceptance. Through him an entire generation prospered and became like shining lamps. He built a madrasah and two ribāts, taught and issued fatwas, and was appointed to teach at the Niẓāmiyyah. I have, however, found no isnād of his for the Gharīb (1) that can be relied upon.

Ibn al-Najjār said: He rejected affectation in his sermons and avoided rhymed prose. For years he earned a living by drawing water with a waterskin for hire, subsisting on that income while preferring others over himself. He and his companions used to shelter in a ruined building. Later his fame spread, he gained favor with royalty, and the sultan himself visited him. He rebuilt that ruin into a ribāt and erected a madrasah beside it, so that it became a sanctuary for anyone who sought his protection from fear, shielding them even from the caliph and the sultan. He lectured at the Niẓāmiyyah in 545 AH, and two years later he was dismissed. He dictated teaching sessions and composed several works … until he said:

He kept company with Shaykh Aḥmad al-Ghazālī the preacher, who initiated him on the spiritual path (2).

I (the author) say: He was maltreated after the death of Sultan Masʿūd. He was brought to the Nubī Gate, humiliated, his head uncovered, struck five times with the whip, and imprisoned for a period, because he had taught under Masʿūd’s patronage.

Ibn al-Najjār said: Yaḥyā ibn al-Qāsim informed us, reporting from Abū al-Najīb, who said:

I used to enter upon Shaykh Hammad while I was in a state of lassitude, and he would say, “You have come to me with darkness upon you.” I would go two or three days unable to obtain any food. I would then plunge into the Tigris and roll about to still my hunger. After that I acquired a waterskin and earned wages carrying water; if someone gave me something, I accepted it, and if he did not, I made no demand. When that became impossible for me during the winter, I went out to the market and found a man with tabarzad (loaf-sugar) in front of him, surrounded by people pounding rice, and I said: