write to him and ask him.

So I wrote, and he replied:

“Your letter has reached me; in it you ask that I describe to you the state I am upon. Know, then, that I put my own soul to the test: that it should love for people what it loves for itself and dislike for them what it dislikes for itself. I found it far from that. I tested it again—vowing to mention the people only in a good way—and discovered that fasting on a sweltering day was easier for it than keeping that vow. This, my brother, is my condition. Peace.”

Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir said: It is reported that Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd said, “I can count one hundred traits of righteousness, yet not a single one of them is found in me.”

Saʿīd also related—from Jasar Abū Jaʿfar—who said: “I visited Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd during the days of Eid al-Adha. He said, ‘Buy us such-and-such of a sheep.’ Then he remarked, ‘By Allah, I do not think any of this will be accepted from me; I fear that I may be among the inhabitants of the Fire.’ I said, ‘Anyone who does not fear that he may be in the Fire is deluded, feeling secure from Allah’s scheme.’”

Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir further narrated—from Salām ibn Abī Muṭīʿ, or someone else—that he said: “Yūnus was not the one who prayed or fasted the most among them, but—no, by Allah—whenever a right of Allah presented itself, he was fully prepared to fulfill it.”

Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir said that Yūnus used to say, “It is easy for me (1) to accept receiving less, yet it is hard for me to give more.”

It is also said that when death approached, Yūnus looked at his feet and wept. He was asked, “What makes you weep, Abū ʿAbd Allāh?” He replied, “My feet—never once were they covered in dust in the path of Allah.”

Mubārak ibn Faḍālah narrated to us from Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, who said: “You will not find a single act of piety that brings all of piety in its wake except the tongue; for you may find a man who fasts often, and then he breaks…”