He was among the foremost amirs (1) in Aleppo. He distributed abundant charity, endowed two madrasas there—one for the Shafiʿi school and the other for the Hanafi—and he built caravanserais, bridges, and other channels of public good; he also took part in a number of military expeditions. May Allah have mercy on him.

Shaykh ʿAlī al-Kurdī (2), called al-Muwallah (the ecstatic), lived outside Bab al-Jābiyah.

Abū Shāmah (3) said: People disagreed about him. Some of the Damascenes claimed that he possessed karāmāt (4) (miraculous favors), while others denied this, saying that no one ever saw him pray or fast, and that he never wore footwear; rather, he would walk over filth and [enter the mosque in that very state] (5). Others maintained that he had an attendant from among the jinn who spoke through him.

Al-Sibt (6) relates from a woman who said: “News reached me from Latakia that my mother had died, though some people assured me she had not. I passed by him while he was sitting near the graveyards and stopped. He raised his head and said to me (7): ‘She has died, she has died—what are you going to do?’ And events turned out exactly as he said.”

ʿAbd Allāh, a companion of mine, told me (8): “One day I was hungry (9) and had nothing with me. I passed by him, and he handed me half a dirham, saying, ‘This is enough for bread and for crumbs dipped in date-molasses.’”

He also said: One day he passed (10) by the preacher Jamāl al-Dīn al-Dawlaʿī (11). The latter said to him (12): “O Shaykh ʿAlī, today I have eaten a few dry crumbs (13) and washed them down with water, and they sufficed me.” Shaykh ʿAlī al-Kurdī asked, “And your soul desires nothing else?” He replied, “No.” Shaykh ʿAlī then said, “Poor man (14)! Whoever is content with a dry crust confines himself to this small cell (15) and fails to perform the pilgrimage that Allah has made obligatory upon him.”