that I possess such knowledge is himself one of the people of Hell.’
When I returned, Zurārah met me and I informed him of what had been said.
He remarked, ‘Abū ʿAbd Allāh has scooped out for you from the jarāb al-nūra (the bag of lime).’
I asked, ‘And what is the “bag of lime”?’
He replied, ‘He dealt with you by way of taqiyyah (1).’
Those who died in the same year as the ḥāfiẓ al-ʿUqaylī include: Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad ibn Khālid ibn al-Jabbāb al-Qurṭubī; the gnostic Khayr al-Nassāj; Abū Muḥammad ʿUbayd Allāh al-Mahdī, ruler of the Maghrib; the hadith transmitter Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Daybulī; the ḥāfiẓ Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Arzunānī; the Sufi shaykh Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Kattānī; the Sufi shaykh in Egypt Abū ʿAlī al-Rūdhbārī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad; and—according to one report—the ḥāfiẓ Abū Nuʿaym ibn ʿAdī as well. Another opinion states that he died a year later.
- Ibn Rishdīn, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Mahdī *
The shaykh, imām, muḥaddith, reliable and truthful—Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥajjāj ibn Rishdīn ibn Saʿd al-Mahdī al-Miṣrī, the bookseller.
He transmitted hadith from: al-Ḥārith ibn Miskīn, Abū al-Ṭāhir ibn al-Sarḥ, Salamah ibn Shabīb, Yūnus al-Ṣadafī, and many others.
Narrated from him: Abū Saʿīd ibn Yūnus, al-Ṭabarānī, Abū Bakr ibn al-Muqriʾ, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ikhmīmī, and a group of others.
(1) Taqiyyah: the practice of religious dissimulation, concealing one’s true belief for self-protection.