I said: May Allah remove all blessing from such an analogy. What he meant was that refraining from invoking mercy is nothing more than silence, and a silent person cannot be credited with any stated view. Yet whoever withholds the prayer for mercy from someone like the martyr, the Commander of the Believers ʿUthmān, is touched by a degree of Shiʿite bias. If he goes further and speaks of him with anger and disparagement, then—being a Shiʿī—he is to be flogged and disciplined. Should he extend his censure to the Two Shaykhs, he is a vile Rāfiḍī; and whoever reviles Imām ʿAlī is a Naṣibī (1) who is to be punished. If he brands ʿAlī an unbeliever, he is a renegade Khārijī. Our way, rather, is to seek forgiveness for them all, to love them, and to refrain from probing into the disputes that arose among them.

Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī said: Isḥāq ibn Jabalah narrated to us:

One day Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ entered the market while I was with him. He saw one man sewing and another dyeing cloth; he wept and said, “Look at them—keeping themselves busy with diversions until death comes upon them.”

It is also related that whenever Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ looked at a cemetery he would cry out and lose consciousness (2).

Ḥumayd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ruʾāsī said: I was with the two sons of Ṣāliḥ when a man was reciting, “The supreme terror will not grieve them” (Q 21:103). ʿAlī turned to his brother Ḥasan, whose color had turned green and then yellow, and said, “O Ḥasan! These are terrors upon terrors.” I saw Ḥasan about to scream; then he gathered his cloak, bit down on it until the state passed, and his lips shriveled while his complexion turned green and yellow (3).

Aḥmad ibn ʿImrān ibn Jaʿfar al-Baghdādī reported: Yaḥyā ibn Ādam told us:

Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ said: My brother said to me—while I was praying—“Brother, give me something to drink.” When I had finished my prayer I brought him water, but he said, “I have just drunk.” I asked, “Who gave you drink when no one…"