53. ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; he said: Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn told me; he said: Muḥammad b. Sahl al-Urdunni told me; he said: ʿAbbād b. ʿAbbād, Abū ʿUtbah al-Khawwāṣ, told me:

“I once saw an elderly man in Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) who looked as though he had been scorched by fire. He was wrapped in a coarse black cloak and wore a black turban. He spoke little, his appearance was forbidding, his hair was unkempt, and his sorrow ran deep. I said to him, ‘May Allah have mercy on you—why not change these clothes of yours? You surely know the virtue related concerning white.’

He wept and replied, ‘This is closer to the attire of people in mourning. You and I, in this world, are as though in bereavement; it is as if both of us have already been summoned.’

He had not yet completed his words before he fell unconscious.”