Damascus, and they said, “He claims that he sees the angels and speaks with them.” He therefore withdrew to one of the frontier outposts. Some of the people of Damascus then realized that, if he did not return to you, you would be ruined. They set out in search of him, pleaded with him, and finally brought him back (1).

People differed over the year of his death. It was said: 204 AH; it was said: 205 AH; it was said: 215 AH; and it was said: 235 AH—Allah knows best.

Marwan al-Tatari (2) remarked on the day Abu Sulayman died, “All the people of Islam, every last one of them, have suffered a bereavement by his loss” (3).

I say: He was buried in the village of Darayya, where his grave is well known and covered by a structure. Directly in front of it stands a mosque built by the amir Nahid al-Din ʿUmar al-Mahrani, who endowed a charitable trust for those residing there, from which they receive an income. The shrine has been renovated in our own time. I have not found the hadith master Ibn ʿAsakir mention the location of his grave at all, which is astonishing.

Ibn ʿAsakir narrated from Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari, who said: “I longed to see Abu Sulayman in a dream, and a year later I did see him. I asked, ‘What has Allah done with you, O teacher?’ He replied, ‘O Ahmad, one day I came in through Bab al-Saghir and saw a load of shih (wormwood) (4). I picked a single twig from it, and I do not know whether I used it as a tooth-pick or threw it away; I am still being taken to account for it up to this very moment (5).’”

His son Sulayman died about two years after him—may Allah have mercy on them both.

[Then came the year 206 AH]

In that year: al-Maʾmun appointed Dawud ibn Masjur over Basra, the districts of the Tigris, al-Yamama, and al-Bahrayn, and ordered him to fight the Zutt (6).

In that year: a great flood came, submerging the lands of al-Sawad and destroying much property.

And in that year: al-Maʾmun placed ʿAbd Allah ibn Tahir ibn al-Husayn over al-Raqqa and commanded him to fight Nasr ibn Shabath, for—