million dirhams; of garments there were three thousand camel-loads, the armoury held two thousand loads, the furnishings one thousand five hundred loads, and other effects befitting royalty. Yet on the very night he died they could not lay hands on a single coin of that wealth, and no shroud was found for him except the cloak of a man who was staying in the mosque. They were too absorbed in securing the throne—until it finally passed to his son Rustam—to attend to the king, so his corpse became putrid and no one dared approach it. They therefore tied it with ropes and dragged it up the steps of the citadel, where it tore apart. (1)
Ibn Samʿūn the Preacher (2)
He is Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAnbas (3) ibn Ismāʿīl, Abū al-Ḥusayn Ibn Samʿūn the Preacher, one of the righteous scholars. He was known as “the Speaker of Wisdom.”
He transmitted traditions from Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd and others of that generation. Gifted in exhortation and scrupulous in financial dealings, he was renowned for miracles and spiritual unveilings. One day, while he was preaching from the pulpit, Abū al-Fath ibn al-Qawwās—himself a celebrated righteous man—was seated below him and dozed off. Ibn Samʿūn stopped preaching until he awoke. When he did, Ibn Samʿūn asked, “Did you just see the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in your dream?” He replied, “Yes.” Ibn Samʿūn said, “That is why I paused, lest I disturb what you were experiencing.”
A man once had a daughter who was gravely ill. In a dream he saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ saying to him, “Go to Ibn Samʿūn; let him come to your house and pray for your daughter, and she will recover by Allah’s permission.” At daybreak he went to invite Ibn Samʿūn. As soon as the shaykh saw him he rose, put on his cloak, and accompanied him. The man assumed he was on his way to his preaching session and thought, “I will speak to him along the road.” But when they passed the man’s house the shaykh entered, the girl was brought before him, he prayed for her, and departed—and she was cured on the spot.
The caliph al-Ṭāʾiʿ lillāh once summoned Ibn Samʿūn in anger, and people feared for his safety. When he sat before the caliph he began to preach, quoting chiefly the words of the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. The caliph wept until his sobs were audible, and Ibn Samʿūn left his presence honoured. Someone said to the caliph, “We saw that you had summoned him while you were angry.” He replied, “I was told he belittles ʿAlī and intended to punish him. But when he arrived, nothing was more frequent on his tongue than the praise of ʿAlī. I knew then that he is divinely aided, for he had been shown what I was harboring against him.”