Ḥabīb al-ʿAjmī⦗15⦘, who was one of the companions of al-Hasan al-Basri⦗1⦘ and, after him, of the righteous—may Allah have mercy on them all⦗2⦘.
When Friday, one of the first ten days of Dhu al-Ḥijjah that year, arrived, Shaykh ʿAbd Allah al-Yunīnī performed the Friday⦗3⦘ prayer in the congregational mosque of Baalbek. Earlier that day, before the prayer⦗4⦘, he had entered the bathhouse in perfect health. After the service he said to Shaykh Dāwūd the muʾadhdhin—who also washed the dead—“See what state you will be in tomorrow.”⦗5⦘
The shaykh then went up to his zāwiya and spent the entire night in remembrance of Allah Most High, recalling his disciples and everyone who had ever shown him even the slightest kindness, and praying for them all. When the time for dawn came, he led his followers in the Ṣubḥ prayer, then reclined, continuing his remembrance with a subḥa⦗6⦘ (prayer-beads) in his hand. He passed away in that very posture—still seated, without collapsing, and the beads did not slip from his grasp.
When news reached al-Malik al-Amjad, the ruler of Baalbek, he⦗7⦘ came and looked upon the shaykh in that state, saying, “Were we to build a structure over him just as he is, the people would behold a sign.” He was told, however, “Such a thing is not in accordance with the sunnah.”⦗8⦘ The body was therefore removed, washed, shrouded, the funeral prayer was performed, and he was buried beneath the almond tree under which he had customarily sat remembering Allah Most High.⦗9⦘
Among his pupils was Shaykh Muḥammad al-Faqīh al-Yunīnī⦗10⦘, who was devoted to him and is the forefather of the present-day shaykhs of Baalbek.
Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn al-Mujallī al-Mawṣilī, known as Ibn al-Juhayni, was an accomplished young man who served as chancery secretary to Badr al-Dīn Luʾluʾ, the ruler of Mosul.
Some of his poetry runs:
(from the basīṭ metre)
My soul be a ransom for the one who fills my thought;
I have begun to drown in an ocean of wonder.
He shines at night, surpassing dawn and the moon alike,
Outshining a supple branch, imagination, and lofty dunes.
[Then came the year 618 AH.]
In that year the Tatars⦗11⦘ seized many towns—Marāghah⦗12⦘, Hamadān, Ardabīl, Tabrīz, and Ganja—and put their inhabitants to the sword