He served for a time and narrated ḥadith from al-Silafī. He also left the following riddle:

“What is the thing whose heart is stone and whose face is like the moon? If it is cast away, it keeps apart from people; if you leave it hungry, it is content with date-pits and folds up upon its emptiness; if you satisfy it, it kisses the foot and accompanies the servants; if you wrap it, it is lost; and if you bring it to the market, it refuses to be sold (1). Should you double its second letter and drop its fourth, it darkens life, shortens the prayer, brings boredom at the time of ʿAṣr, and dullness at Fajr; yet if you separate its letters, it will pray for you and endure. Whoever mounts it perishes, though it may increase your wealth, and—through helping the ‘poor’—your final state will be the better.”

His comment “its heart is stone” means a solid rock, and “the poor” are the owners of the ship at sea (2).

He died in Shaʿbān 616 AH, at the age of seventy-five.

74 – al-Yūnīnī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Jaʿfar *

The ascetic, the devotee, the Lion of Syria—Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Jaʿfar al-Yūnīnī.

He was an elder, tall, imposing, courageous, and keen-spirited. He would rise at midnight to look after the poor; if he found anyone of them asleep he struck him with a staff of his called “al-ʿĀfiyah.” He carried a bow and weapons, wore a cap of goatskin with the hair still on, and was active in commanding right, fearing no one.