Azerbaijan was called Aṣbihbadh, and whoever ruled Tabaristan was called Ruslan (1). Ibn al-Jawzi records this in his al-Muntaẓam (2).

Al-Suhaylī said: “The Arabs used to call whoever ruled Syria together with al-Jazīrah—provided he was an unbeliever—Caesar; whoever ruled Persia, Kisrā; whoever ruled Yemen, Tubbaʿ; whoever ruled Abyssinia, the Negus; whoever ruled India, Ptolemy; whoever ruled Egypt, if he was an unbeliever, Pharaoh; and whoever ruled Alexandria, al-Muqawqis (3).” He mentioned others as well. Al-Ikhshīd died in Damascus, after which his body was carried to Jerusalem, where he was buried—may Allah have mercy on him.

Abū Bakr al-Shiblī (4) was one of the renowned Sufi shaykhs. There is disagreement concerning his full name: some said it was Dulaf ibn Jaḥdar, while others said he was the son of Jaʿfar ibn Yūnus (5).

He hailed from a village called Shibliyyah in the land of Ushrūsana in Khurasan, and he was born in Sāmarrā. His father served as ḥājib al-ḥujjāb to al-Muwaffaq (6), and his maternal uncle was the deputy governor of Alexandria. Al-Shiblī’s repentance came at the hands of Khayr al-Nassāj (7); he heard him preach, the words struck his heart, and he repented on the spot. He had followed the Mālikī school and had written down many hadiths, but thereafter devoted himself to worship and spiritual discipline, abandoned all of that, and even washed his books. His father had left him abundant gold and landed estates, and he spent all of it on the Sufis and the needy.

Al-Shiblī said: “In Yemen I once saw the governor’s palace and the people thronging its door. The king appeared to them from a window and gestured with his hand in greeting, whereupon they all prostrated to him. Later I saw the same man in Syria; he had bought meat for a single dirham and was carrying it in his hand. I asked, ‘Are you that same man?’ He replied, ‘Yes. Whoever has seen that and has seen this should never belittle the world!’”

On another occasion al-Shiblī saw a barber cupping one of the Sufis. When the barber finished, al-Shiblī handed him forty dinars in a purse, but he returned them, saying, “I did what I did for the sake of Allah; I will not break my covenant with Allah for these dinars.” Al-Shiblī thereupon struck his own face and said, “Every human being is better than al-Shiblī—even the barber.”