217 – Muhammad ibn al-Husayn related to me, saying: Ismaʿil ibn Ziyad narrated to us; he said: Saʿid ibn Rashid al-Hanafi told me; he said: Abu Tahir Zurara ibn ʿUmara al-Darimi narrated to me:

“While we were travelling on the road to Syria, we passed a monk in his hermitage. We said to him, ‘Give us counsel.’ He replied, ‘A man’s finest companion is his waraʿ (scrupulous piety); it neither deserts him nor lands him in trouble.’ We said, ‘Give us more.’ He said, ‘The praiseworthy end is that state to which the soul finds serenity in the here-and-now.’”