64 – Al-Ḥusayn narrated to us; he said: ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; he said: ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā narrated to us: A man once declared, “I shall certainly test the people of affliction ⦗89⦘. So I went in to see a man in Ṭarṭūs whose extremities had been consumed by al-akala, a flesh-eating disease. I asked him, “How are you this morning?”

He replied, “By Allah, every vein and every limb aches with its own sharp pain. If the Byzantines, with all their unbelief and idolatry, were to look at me, they would feel compassion for what I am enduring. Yet all of this is under Allah’s watchful eye; whatever He loves most is what I love most. How little my Lord has taken from me! I wish He had cut off the very limbs with which I incurred sin, leaving me nothing but a tongue to remember Him.”

A man then asked, “When did this illness first come upon you?” He answered, “Is it not enough for you to know that all creatures are Allah’s servants and dependants? When an affliction descends upon the servants, the complaint is directed to Allah; one does not complain about Allah to His servants.”