and another has said (4):

The furthest reach of the intellects is but a tether,
While the greater part of mankind’s striving is misguidance.
Our spirits feel estranged from our very bodies,
And the sum of this worldly life is hurt and woe.
Through all the long years we spent in investigation
We gained nothing but the clamor of “He said” and “They said.”

Another (1) declared: “I have plunged into the fathomless sea (2), abandoned the people of Islam and their sciences, and ventured into that which they had forbidden me (3). Now, if (4) my Lord does not overtake me with His mercy, woe unto me; here I am dying upon the creed of my mother.”

Yet another (5) said: “Those who harbor the most doubt at the moment of death are the people of kalam (dialectical theology)” (6).

One of them, in the throes of death (7), said: “Bear witness that I die knowing nothing save that the contingent depends upon the Necessary. Then he added, ‘Dependency is a non-entity, so I have known nothing.’”

Still another, when an affliction befell him at the hands of his ruler, sought aid from the lord of the philosophers, but