I beheld my Lord when I was lowered into my grave,
parted from my companions, my family, and my neighbours.
And He said (1):
“May you be abundantly rewarded for what you did on My behalf;
I am pleased with you—here before you are My pardon and My mercy.
You spent (2) a lifetime hoping for triumph (3) and for My good pleasure;
so you have been spared My fires and welcomed into My Garden.”
He said: I awoke in fright and wrote down (4) the verses—Allah knows best.
al-Qāḍī Jamāl al-Dīn ibn al-Harastānī (5): ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Faḍl, Abū al-Qāsim al-Anṣārī, known as Ibn al-Harastānī, Chief Judge of Damascus.
He was born in 520 AH. His father came from Harastā (6), settled inside Bāb Tūmā, and served as imām of the Zaynabī mosque. The son grew up well, heard a great deal of ḥadīth, and shared many teachers with the scholar Ibn ʿAsākir (7). He used to sit to transmit ḥadīth (8) in the al-Khaḍir enclosure, where he always prayed, never missing the congregational prayer in the Umayyad Mosque. His home was in al-Ḥuwayra (9); he taught at the Mujāhidiyya and lived a long life upon this righteous course—Allah knows best.
He acted as deputy judge for Ibn Abī ʿAṣrūn (10), then resigned and confined himself to his house and to praying in the mosque. Later al-ʿĀdil deposed the judge Ibn al-Zakī [al-Ṭāhir ibn Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Qurashī] and compelled al-Qāḍī Jamāl al-Dīn ibn al-Harastānī to take up the judiciary (11) when he was ninety-two years old. He also granted him the professorship at the ʿAzīziyya, removed the teaching stipend from Ibn al-Zakī, and assigned it to Fakhr al-Dīn ibn ʿAsākir (12).