with nakedness and with hardship, just as a tender mother deals with her child: one time she makes him drink ḥuḍaḍ (1) and another time aloes, yet by all this she only seeks what is best for him.

Fudayl also said: “It is forbidden for your hearts to taste the sweetness of faith until you become indifferent to the life of this world.”

He further said: “If you are unable to spend the night in prayer and the day in fasting, know that you have been deprived; your sin has shackled you.”

It is related from Fudayl that when he saw a group of ḥadith scholars romping and laughing, he called out to them, “Easy there, O heirs of the Prophets—easy, easy, easy! You are leaders whom people follow.”

Ibn ʿUyaynah said: I heard Fudayl ibn ʿIyāḍ say, “Seventy sins are forgiven the ignorant man, whereas not even one sin is forgiven the scholar.” (2)

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: Abū Jaʿfar al-Ḥaddāʾ narrated to us: I heard Fudayl say, “I once took Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah by the hand in this valley and told him, ‘If you think that anyone still walking the earth is worse than you and me, what an evil thought that is.’”

ʿAbd al-Ṣamad Mardawayh said: I heard Fudayl say, “Whoever loves an innovator in religion, Allah will void his deeds and strip the light of Islam from his heart. No deed of an innovator is raised up to Allah. A believer’s glance at another believer polishes the heart, but to look at an innovator yields blindness. Whoever keeps company with an innovator will not be granted wisdom.”

Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj said: Abū al-Naḍr Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrated to me; Yaḥyā ibn Yūsuf al-Zammī narrated to us, from Fudayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, who said, “When Hārūn, the Commander—”