Originally from the village of Busr (1) east of Zurʿa, he spent a period in Damascus working in the silk trade. He then abandoned that occupation and adopted the life of a faqir (2) under the guidance of Shaykh ʿAlī al-Maghrabl (3). He built for himself a zawiyah on the southern rise, but actions soon appeared from him that the jurists condemned—among them Shaykh ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (4), Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (5), Shaykh Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-Ḥājib, the leading Mālikī authority (6), and others. When the Ashrafī regime came to power he was imprisoned for several years in the fortress of ʿIzzatā (7); later al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl released him on the condition that he not reside in Damascus, whereupon he remained in his native Busr until his death in this very year.

Shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Shāma writes in al-Dhayl (8): “In Ramaḍān this year Shaykh ʿAlī, known as al-Ḥarīrī, who lived in his zawiyah in the village of Busr and regularly traveled to Damascus, also passed away. A group of fuqaraʾ followed him—these were the Ḥarīriyyah (9)—people whose distinctive dress contravened the sacred law, whose inner state was even worse than their outward appearance, except for those among them who repented to Allah. Al-Ḥarīrī made light of the prescriptions of the Sharīʿah and mocked them, openly displaying the emblems (10) of the licentious and disobedient. Because of him a great number (11) of the sons of Damascus’s leading families (12) were corrupted; they adopted the dress of his companions and attached themselves to him, for he was a libertine without restraint (13). His gatherings featured continual singing, dancing, and beardless youths, and he never censured (14) anyone for what he did. He abandoned the prescribed prayers and was prodigal in his spending (15), thereby leading many people astray and causing widespread (16) corruption.”