96 – Ibn Qāʾid, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Maʿālī al-Awānī
A paragon and gnostic, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Maʿālī ibn Qāʾid (1) al-Awānī.
He was an ascetic, humble, endowed with miraculous graces, intense devotion, and regular litanies. For a time he was unable to walk.
A Bāṭinī preacher once arrived in ʿAwāna (2) and began attacking the Companions. The shaykh had himself carried out in his litter and shouted at him, “You dog, come down!” The common folk stoned the man, and he fled.
The shaykh then informed Sanān (3) of what had taken place. Sanān assigned two men to the task: they approached the preacher, spent several months worshipping alongside him, then killed him (4) and slew his servant. They escaped into the orchards, but a farmer grew suspicious of them and killed them outright. When he noticed the patched garb of poverty on them he regretted it, yet he soon realized—by their description—that they were indeed the ones who had murdered the shaykh. The two were subsequently burned.
It was said that Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh al-Urmawī (5) witnessed the incident.
(*) Ibn al-Dubaythi records a notice on him in his History, fol. 154 (Shaheed ʿAlī MS); al-Mundhiri, Takmila, vol. 1, biog. 52; Ibn al-Saʿi, Akhbar al-Zuhhad, fol. 3; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, fol. 116 (Ahmad III 2917/14); al-Mushtabih, p. 516; Ibn Nasir al-Din, Tawdi h al-Mushtabih, fol. 34 (Suhaj MS); al-Safadi, al-Wafi, 4/352; al-ʿAyni, ʿUqd al-Juman, 17, fol. 63.
(1) Al-Mundhiri spells the nisba explicitly: with qaf, a final ya, and ending in an undotted dal; cf. al-Mushtabih, p. 516.
(2) Pronounced with an initial hamza bearing fat ha, a light waw, followed by an alif and a nun; it is a village near Dujayl, north of Baghdad toward Mosul (Ibn al-Dubaythi, History, fol. 154; Yaqut, Muʿjam al-Buldan, 1/395).
(3) That is Rashid al-Din Sinan b. Salman, the chief of the Ismaʿilis.
(4) The event took place on Thursday, 25 Ramadan 584/1188–89, as stated by Ibn al-Dubaythi (History) and al-Mundhiri (Takmila); the author seems to have omitted the date.
(5) Shaykh ʿAbd Allah b. Yunus al-Armawi, a noted ascetic of Damascus, had a well-known zawiya on Mount Qasiyun; he died relatively young in Shawwal 631/1234, as reported by al-Dhahabi and others.