In another report he said: “For thirty years I have longed to eat greens, yet I have never been able to do so.”

It is also related from Sari that he said: “Our marketplace once caught fire. I went to the spot where my shop stood, and a man met me saying, ‘Rejoice, for your shop is safe.’ I replied, ‘al-ḥamdu lillah’—praise belongs to Allah. Afterwards I reflected on that very utterance of praise (1), and I have been seeking Allah’s forgiveness for it for thirty years.” Al-Khatib is the one who transmitted this report (2).

Sari also said: “One night, after performing my wird—my fixed portion of devotions—I stretched out my legs in the prayer-niche. A voice called out, ‘O Sari! Is this how you sit in the presence of kings?’ I immediately drew my legs in and vowed, ‘By Your might, I shall never stretch out my legs again.’ (3)”

Al-Junayd ibn Muhammad said: “I have never seen anyone more devoted [to Allah] (4) than Sari al-Saqati. Ninety-eight years passed over him, and he was never seen lying down except in the illness of death (5).”

Al-Khatib (6) narrated, through Abu Nuʿaym, Jaʿfar al-Khuldi, and al-Junayd ibn Muhammad, that al-Junayd said: “I went in to visit him and asked, ‘How do you find yourself?’ He answered, ‘How (7) could I complain to my physician about what ails me, when what has befallen me is from my very Physician?’ I took up a fan to cool him, but he said, ‘How can one whose insides are burning find relief (8) from the breeze of a fan?’ Then he recited:

The heart is aflame, the tears overflow; distress converges while patience is split.
How can there be rest for one who knows no rest, ruined by passion, longing, and disquiet?
O Lord, if there is any release in this for me, then grant it to me so long as I still draw breath.

He (9) said: “I then asked him, ‘Give me some counsel.’ He replied, ‘Keep no company with the wicked, and do not allow the company of the righteous to distract you from Allah.’”