He had also kept company with al-Shiblī (1) and others, and he would preach to the people in the main mosque. When he grew old, a ribāṭ (Sufi lodge) was built for him opposite the al-Manṣūr Mosque; it later became known by the name of its caretaker, al-Zawzanī (2). He would not leave it except from one Friday to the next, and he left behind fine remarks on Sufism in keeping with their method.

Among the sayings that Ibn al-Jawzī related from him is the following: “What claim do I have over myself? What is there in me that should make me fear or hope? If He shows mercy, He shows mercy to what is His; and if He punishes, He punishes what is His.” (3)

He passed away in Dhū al-Ḥijjah, having lived a little over eighty years, and was buried in the Bāb Ḥarb cemetery of Baghdad.

ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Aḥdab, the forger (4): he possessed a powerful hand in calligraphy and an extraordinary talent for forgery—whenever he wished to imitate another’s handwriting, he did so such that the person whose hand was copied would not doubt it was his own. People suffered greatly because of him. The authorities placed their seal on his hand several times, but it did no good. He died in this same year (5).

Shaykh Abū Zayd [al-Marwazī al-Shāfiʿī] (6)—Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Marwazī—was the leading Shāfiʿī of his day and the foremost man of his age in jurisprudence, asceticism, worship, and piety. He heard ḥadith, entered Baghdad, and taught there; al-Dāraquṭnī and others narrated from him.

Abū Bakr al-Bazzār said: “I travelled side by side (7) with Shaykh Abū Zayd on the pilgrimage route, and I do not know that the angels recorded a single sin against him.” I have given his full biography in my Tabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah.

Shaykh Ibn Nuʿaym (8) said: He died in Marw on Friday, the thirteenth of Rajab of this year—may Allah have mercy on him.