aha! an easy, cool booty; set right what remains and what has passed will be forgiven you. I envy no one except the one who has come to know his Lord.

It is related from him that he said, “A little certainty banishes every doubt from the heart.”

Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān told me that Aḥmad ibn ʿĀṣim said, “The scarcity of fear comes from the scarcity of sorrow in the heart, just as a house that is left uninhabited falls into ruin.”

Abū Zurʿah said: Aḥmad ibn ʿĀṣim the Sage dictated to me, “People are three categories: (1) those whose innate nature is prevailing—and they are the believers; when they grow heedless, they remember; (2) those whose innate nature is overpowered; once they are shown, they perceive and return by the strength of reason; and (3) those whose innate nature is overpowered and devoid of sound disposition; there is no way to bring such people back through admonition.”

I said: What, then, is to be expected if the very preacher belongs to that third category—a slave to his stomach and his passions, his heart stripped of sorrow and fear? Should entrenched immorality or a loosening of religious commitment be added to that, he is doomed and ruined, and Allah—exalted is He—will inevitably expose him.

It is also related from him: “All goodness lies in the world being kept away from you, your being blessed with contentment, and people turning their faces from you.”

He left behind many such beneficial exhortations whose impact on hearts was profound—may Allah have mercy on him.

97 – Suwayd ibn Saʿīd ibn Sahl ibn Shahrayār * (M, Q)
The imam, the ḥadith scholar, the truthful narrator, shaykh of the hadith scholars,