It is also reported that, while Abu Ḥamzah was one day seated on his preaching chair in Baghdad admonishing the congregation, his spiritual state shifted, ecstatic emotion overwhelmed him and he tumbled from the chair. A few days later he passed away.

Al-Khaṭīb records that his death occurred in the year 269 AH (1). Al-Sulamī, however, states that he died in 289 AH (2). I say: one numeral has been transposed for another; the correct date is sixty, not eighty.

Ibn al-Aʿrābī dates it likewise and adds: “He came from Tarsus, whereupon the people of Baghdad gathered around him and he remained universally accepted. Scholars and devotees attended his funeral; a group from Banū Hāshim washed his body. Al-Junayd was brought forward to lead the funeral prayer but declined, so his own son stepped up. I spent the night in his mosque on the evening of his death and was informed that he recited his regular portion of the Qur’an, completing it that very night.”

He was a man given to night worship, highly distinguished in Qur’anic sciences, especially in the reading of Abū ʿAmr, and many transmitted that recitation from him.

The cause of his final illness was that the audience had grown large, so a chair was brought for him. During his discourse a phrase so delighted him that he repeated it, fainted, and fell—something that often befell him. On Friday he left, supported by two men, took to his bed, and was buried the following Friday after the prayer.

He was the first to speak publicly about the purity of remembrance, and he joined together single-minded concern, love, yearning, nearness, and intimacy before the people. He was a client of the judge ʿĪsā ibn Abān.

I heard him more than once relate: “Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said to me, ‘O Sufi, what do you say about this question?’”