been robbed on the way, so he handed me the very garments he had on. When ʿAbdān entered the mosque, he embraced the elder and greeted him cheerfully. I asked, “Who is this man?” They said, “This is Abū ʿAlī al-Rūdhbārī.”

It is related that Abū ʿAlī was asked about a man who listens to musical entertainment and claims, “It is lawful for me, for I have attained a station where the changing of states no longer affects me.” He answered, “Yes, he has indeed arrived—but at Saqar (1).”

He also said, “The most beneficial kind of certitude is that which exalts the Truth (God) in your sight, diminishes everything else before you, and establishes both hope and fear firmly in your heart.”

Abū ʿAlī al-Kātib remarked, “I have never seen anyone who combined knowledge of the Sharīʿa and of spiritual reality more completely than Abū ʿAlī.”

Aḥmad ibn ʿAtāʾ al-Rūdhbārī said, “My maternal uncle Abū ʿAlī issued legal opinions on the basis of hadith.”

The author says: He died in 322 AH.

Those who learned from him include his nephew, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Wajīhī, Maʿrūf al-Zanjānī, and others.

309 – Ibn Ḥarbawayh, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥarb al-Baghdādī, the judge, the eminent scholar, the hadith expert, the reliable authority, Chief Judge, Abū ʿUbayd…

(1) Saqar: one of the names of Hell.