66 – Muhammad ibn al-Husayn said: Manbūdh Abu Hammam narrated to me. He related: I once asked ‘Īsā ibn Wardān—whose breathing was strangely laboured—“What is the utmost object of your desire in this world?” He began to weep and then replied, “I yearn for my breast to be laid open so that I may look at my heart and see what the Qur’an has wrought within it and what wounds it has laid bare.” Whenever ‘Īsā recited, he would gasp so intensely that I would say, “His very soul is about to depart now.”