Our shaykh, the Imām, the ḥāfiẓ, Majd al-Dīn, Shaykh al-Islām Abū al-Faraj Yaḥyā ibn Maḥmūd ibn Saʿd al-Thaqafī al-Iṣfahānī—may Allah have mercy on him—informed us, saying: Shaykh Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Muqriʾ informed us; Imām Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn al-Faḍl al-Bāṭirqānī narrated to us; al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūhā related to us; Abū al-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar informed us; and Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd al-Qurashī read to us, on Tuesday in the month of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir of the year 280 AH, from his own book:
1 – ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd al-Jawharī and Saʿīd ibn Sulaymān al-Wāsiṭī narrated to us, from ⦗46⦘ Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, from ʿAmr ibn Qays al-Kindī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Busr, who said: Two Bedouins came to the Prophet ﷺ. One of them asked, “O Messenger of Allah, who are the best of people?” He replied, “Those whose lives are long and whose deeds are good.” The other said, “O Messenger of Allah, the prescriptions of Islam have become too numerous for me; direct me to something I can cling to.” He said, “Let your tongue never cease to be moist with the remembrance (dhikr) of Allah.”