and found that he had not moved past that verse. I then lay down to sleep, and when I passed by again in the pre-dawn hours he was reciting, ‘It is You we worship.’ He went on repeating it until daybreak.

Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz said: I heard Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī say, “Whoever acts without following the Sunnah, his deed is invalid.”

He also said, “Whoever gazes at this world with desire and affection, Allah removes from his heart the light of certainty and detachment.” (1)

Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī states in his History of the Sufis (2): I heard Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Maṭar relate that he heard Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al-Hisanjānī say, “Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī threw his books into the sea and declared, ‘You were an excellent guide, but to remain occupied with the guide after one has arrived is impossible.’” (3)

Al-Sulamī likewise reports: I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Ṭabarī say that he heard Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥusayn say, “Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī sought knowledge for thirty years. Then he carried all his books to the sea and drowned them, saying, ‘O knowledge, I have not done this out of contempt for you, but once you had guided me I no longer needed you.’” (4)

Aḥmad ibn Salāmah informed us in his book, through ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Muḥammad al-Kāghadhī; and Isḥāq ibn Khalīl likewise related to us, al-Kāghadhī related to us, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād related to us, Abū Nuʿaym related to us, Isḥāq ibn Aḥmad narrated to us, Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf narrated to us, from Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī, who said:

“I said to a monk in the monastery of Harmala….”