Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Sulami said, “I heard Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Khushshab say, ‘I heard Ibn al-Aʿrabi say:

“All of maʿrifa (spiritual gnosis) is the admission of one’s ignorance; all of taṣawwuf (Sufism) is the abandonment of what is superfluous; all of zuhd (renunciation) is to take no more than what is indispensable; all of muʿāmalah (spiritual conduct) is to act on the higher priority, then the next; all of riḍā (contentment) is to give up objection; and all of ʿāfiyah (well-being) is for all affectation to fall away—without any affectation at all (1).”’

He—may Allah have mercy on him—had kept the company of al-Junayd and Abū Aḥmad al-Qalānisi.

He also composed a History of Basra, which I have not seen. As for his book “The Classes of the Ascetics,” I have taken material from it.

Among his remarks in the biography of Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī, he said: “He died while they were discussing something in his presence; it would have been better for them to keep silent about it, for it was pure guesswork and forced conjecture. If those men were like that, then what of those who came after them?”

He also said: “They would only speak of ‘union,’ yet the form of union for each person differed from that of the next, and the same is true of the form of fanāʾ (annihilation). They agreed on the names while differing over their meanings, because what lies beneath the name cannot be circumscribed—these are matters of experiential knowledge.”

He continued: “Likewise, the science of maʿrifa is unbounded; there is no end to its reality or to its tasting…,” until he said—and he spoke well: “So when you hear a man asking about union or annihilation, or answering questions about them, know that he is empty; he is not one of the people of that path, for its true people do not ask about it, knowing that it cannot be attained through description.”

I say: Yes, by Allah! They refined and probed deeply, plunging into tremendous secrets, what