so he dismounted, kissed my hand, and said, “The youngsters did not recognize you.”

Allah had placed a commanding awe of him in people’s hearts.

I heard Fadāʾil ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Surūr al-Maqdisī say:
“I heard the people of Egypt relating that the ḥāfiẓ once entered the presence of al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, and the sultan rose to greet him. The next day the emirs—among them Sarkis and Uzqash—came to the ḥāfiẓ and said, ‘We are now convinced of your karāmāt, O ḥāfiẓ.’

“They also reported that al-ʿĀdil said, ‘I have never feared anyone as I feared this man.’ We remarked, ‘Your Majesty, he is only a jurist.’ He replied, ‘When he entered, it seemed to me that he was a lion!’”

Al-Ḍiyāʾ said: “I found in the ḥāfiẓ’s own handwriting: ‘I met with al-Malik al-ʿĀdil and saw nothing from him but kindness. He turned toward me, stood up for me, embraced me, and I prayed for him. Then I said, “Whatever shortcomings there are lie with us; it is our own deficiency that leads to lapses.”

‘He answered, “With you there is neither failing nor deficiency.” He then spoke about the Sunnah and said, “You have nothing for which you can be blamed, whether in religion or in worldly affairs; yet people must inevitably include the envious.”’

Al-Ḍiyāʾ continues: “I was later informed that al-ʿĀdil said, ‘In neither Syria nor Egypt have I seen the like of so-and-so; when he entered, I thought him a lion. This is by the blessing of your prayers and the prayers of the brethren.’

“They had already filled al-ʿĀdil’s breast with resentment against him and had spoken ill of him; some even sent word to the sultan, offering five thousand dinars for the ḥāfiẓ’s death.

“I said: The root of this turmoil was the ḥāfiẓ’s publication of the hadiths on the Divine Descent and the Attributes; so they rose up against him, accusing him of anthropomorphism, and he would not placate them as Shaykh al-Muwaffaq had done.

“I heard one of our companions relate, on the authority of the emir Dirbas, that he entered together with the ḥāfiẓ…"