the other Fire. (1)

Ibn Saʿd relates—on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Sulaymān—who said:

Whenever ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn walked, his hand never rose past his thighs, nor did he swing it to and fro; and when he stood for prayer a trembling would seize him. Someone asked about this, and he replied, “Do you realize before Whom I stand and with Whom I converse? (2)”

It is also reported from him that whenever he performed ablution, his face turned pale. (3)

Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Shāfiʿī—on the authority of Sufyān—narrated:

ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn once set out for the pilgrimage. When he entered the state of iḥrām his face turned pale, his body shook, and he was unable to pronounce the talbiyah. Someone said, “Will you not recite the talbiyah?” He answered, “I fear that if I say, ‘At Your service,’ He may respond to me, ‘You are not.’” When at last he managed to recite it, he fainted and fell from his mount, and that condition remained with him until he completed his ḥajj. (3) Its chain is mursal.

Muṣʿab ibn ʿAbd Allāh also transmitted—from Mālik—that ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn entered iḥrām; when he attempted to utter the talbiyah, he did so, fainted, fell from his camel, and was badly injured.

It has reached me that he used to perform one thousand units of prayer every day and night until he died, and for this devotion he was called Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, “the adornment of the worshippers.” (4)

It is further related from Jābir al-Juʿfī, on the authority of Abū Jaʿfar:

“My father used to perform one thousand units of prayer each day and night; yet when death approached him, he wept. I said, ‘Father, what makes you weep?’ He replied, ‘My son, when the Day of Resurrection comes, not a single close angel nor a commissioned prophet will remain except that for Allah…’”