what of al-Muḥāsibī, clinging to his father and saying, “Divorce my mother, for you follow one religion while she follows another” (1).

Junayd related: Al-Hārith once said to me, “How often you say, ‘My solitude is my intimacy.’ Even if half of creation drew near to me, I would feel no closeness to them; and if the other half kept away from me, I would feel no estrangement” (2).

On another day al-Hārith passed by me, and I could see the hardship of hunger on his face. I invited him in and set various dishes before him. He took a morsel and began to chew it, then suddenly got up, left, and spat the bite out. I later met him and reproached him. He replied, “Want indeed was pressing, but when food is not pleasing, a breath of its odor reaches my nose and I cannot accept it” (3)(4).

Al-Hārith said: “The jewel of a person is virtue, and the jewel of the intellect is divine enablement” (5).

He also said: “To renounce the world while still remembering it is the mark of the ascetics; to renounce it and forget it altogether is the mark of the gnostics” (6).

I say: Al-Muḥāsibī was a man of great standing, yet he did engage in a small measure of speculative theology,