6- … Abū ʿAlī ibn Ṣafwān narrated to us; he said: Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd narrated to us; ʿAmr ibn Shumr informed me; Ismāʿīl al-Suddī related: I heard Abū Arākah say:

“I performed the dawn prayer with ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. When he had completed the prayer and turned to his right, he remained seated, as though a deep sadness had settled upon him, until the sun reached a spear’s height above the wall of the mosque— and that wall was lower then than it is today. He then turned his hand over and said:

‘By Allah, I have seen the Companions of Muhammad ﷺ, and today I see nothing that resembles them. They would enter the morning disheveled and dusty, with marks between their eyes like the knees of goats. They had spent the night before Allah in prostration and standing, reciting the Book of Allah, shifting from their foreheads to their feet in worship. When dawn broke and they remembered Allah, they swayed like trees on a windy day, and their eyes overflowed with tears until their clothes were soaked. By Allah, it is as though those people had spent the night in heedlessness!’

Then he rose, and after that he was never seen smiling broadly until the day Ibn Muljam— the enemy of Allah, the reprobate— struck him.”