before I do, then tell me what you encounter from Him.’
One of them subsequently passed away, and in a dream he met the one who was still alive. The latter seemed to ask him, whereupon he replied,
‘Place your trust and rejoice; I have never seen anything to match reliance upon Allah.’ (1)
I say: Salman died several years before ʿAbdullāh.
Sungur al-Zaynabī narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Jazarī and Yaʿīsh ibn ʿAlī reported, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Khaṭīb (ḥ) narrated to us.
I was also informed, through ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Khalaf the ḥāfiẓ, that al-Aʿazz ibn Faḍāʾil narrated to us, and Shahda likewise reported; they said:
Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad al-Sarrāj narrated to us; al-Ḥasan ibn ʿĪsā ibn al-Muqtadir narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Manṣūr al-Yashkurī narrated to us; Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿArafa narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Sāmī told me; Rūḥ ibn Aslam narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Salama, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Abū’l-Bakhtarī, from Salman, who said:
‘Among the Children of Israel there was a woman of remarkable beauty who was married to a man who worked the land with his mattock. Whenever night fell she would bring him his food and prepare his bedding.
News of her reached the king of that time. He sent to her an old woman from the Children of Israel who said, “What are you doing with this fellow who toils with a mattock? Were you with the king, he would clothe you in silk and spread brocade beneath you.”
When those words reached her ears, her husband came home that night, but she neither set out his food nor laid out his bedding.
He asked, “What sort of conduct is this, woman?”
She replied, “Exactly what you see.”
He said, “Shall I divorce you?”
She answered, “Yes.”
So he divorced her, and the king married her. When she was escorted to him, he looked at her and was struck blind; and when he reached out his hand toward her, it shrivelled.
The prophet of that age presented their case before Allah, and Allah revealed to him: “Inform them both that I shall never forgive them. Did they not know that I was watching all they did?”
(1) I have never seen anything to compare with true tawakkul (trust in Allah).