Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: Shurayḥ ibn Yūnus related to me; Hushaym narrated to us, from Ismāʿīl ibn Sālim (1), from ʿAmmār al-Ḥaḍramī, from Zādhān Abū ʿUmar, that a man once told ʿAlī a report. ʿAlī said to him, “I can only think you have lied to me.” The man replied, “I have not.” ʿAlī said, “Then I shall pray against you if you are lying.” The man answered, “Pray!” So he prayed, and the man had scarcely moved before he went blind.

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā also said: Khulaf ibn Sālim narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Bishr narrated to us, from Abū Makīn, who said: My uncle Abū Umayyah and I passed by a house in the quarter of the tribe of Murād. He asked, “Do you see this house?” I said, “Yes.” He continued, “ʿAlī once passed by while it was being built. A piece of masonry fell on him and split his head, so he supplicated Allah that its construction would never be completed.” He added, “Not a single brick has been laid in it since. I was among those who used to pass by it, and it looked unlike the other houses.”

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā further said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūnus ibn Bukayr al-Shaybānī told me, from his father, from ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ibn al-Qāsim al-Anṣārī, from Abū Bashīr al-Shaybānī, who said: I was present with my master at the Battle of the Camel, and never have I seen a day with more arms severed and feet cut off than on that day (2). Whenever I passed by the house of al-Walīd I was reminded of the Day of the Camel. He said: al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah told me that ʿAlī supplicated on the Day of the Camel, saying, “O Allah, seize their hands and their feet.”

Among his eloquent sayings—may Allah be pleased with him (3)—Ibn Abī al-Dunyā reported: ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd told us; ʿAmr ibn Shimr narrated, and Ismāʿīl al-Suddī related to me that he heard Abū Arākah say: I prayed the dawn prayer with ʿAlī. When he had turned to his right he remained seated, a look of melancholy upon him, until the sun had risen the height of a spear above the wall of the mosque. Then he prayed two rakʿahs, turned his hand palm upward and said:

“By Allah, I have seen the Companions of Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him—and I see nothing today that resembles them. They would greet the morning pale, dishevelled and dusty, with the marks of prostration between their eyes like the knees of goats. They had spent the night in prostration and standing for Allah, reciting the Book of Allah, rocking between their foreheads and their feet. When dawn came and they remembered Allah, they swayed like trees on a windy day (4), and their eyes overflowed with tears until their garments were drenched. By Allah, it is as though the people have passed the night in heedlessness.”

Then he rose and was never again seen smiling broadly until the wicked enemy of Allah, Ibn Muljam, killed him.

Wakīʿ reported, from ʿAmr ibn Munabbih, from Awfā ibn Dilham, that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib said: “Seek knowledge so that you may be known by it, and act upon it so that you may belong to its people. After you there will come a time when nine-tenths of the truth will be rejected, and none will be saved in it except every oft-returning, penitent soul. They are the leaders of guidance and the lamps of knowledge; they are not the hasty chatterboxes (5), the scatterers (6).”