the Umayyad Mosque (1). He was, for a period, the Mosque’s superintendent and introduced a number of new projects: he laid out the Coppersmiths’ Market on the qiblah (southern) side of the Mosque, moved the goldsmiths to their present location—before that they had been in the Old Goldsmiths’ Bazaar—renovated the shops situated between the pillars of the ziyādah, and invested the Mosque’s funds so that they yielded a large return. He dispensed abundant charity. It is related that he was versed in the craft of alchemy and had actually succeeded in producing silver, but in my view this report is unsound and cannot be reliably ascribed to him; Allah knows best.
Shaykh Yūsuf (2) al-Aqminī (3)—so called because he lived in the kiln attached to the bathhouse of Nūr al-Dīn the Martyr—wore exceedingly long garments that trailed (4) upon the ground, urinated in his clothes, and went about bare-headed (5). People claimed that he possessed many extraordinary states and unveilings (6), and a large number of the common folk and others believed in his piety and sainthood. [That is because they do not know the conditions of sainthood and righteousness, nor that unveilings may come from the righteous and the wicked, the believer and the unbeliever alike—such as monks and others, and such as the Antichrist (al-Dajjāl), Ibn Ṣayyād, and so on; for the jinn steal a hearing and convey it to a human ear, especially that of one who is deranged or whose clothes are not free from impurity.] (7)
Hence, anyone who claims such states must be tested against the Book and the Sunnah: whoever’s conduct agrees with the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger is a righteous man, whether he experiences unveilings or not (8); whoever’s conduct does not agree is no righteous man, whether he experiences unveilings or not. Imām al-Shāfiʿī [may Allah have mercy on him] said: “If you see a man walking upon the water or flying through the air, do not let that beguile you until you have examined his affair in light of the Book and the Sunnah.” When this [man] (9) died
(1) Manuscripts A and B read “al-Jāmiʿ al-Mabrūr”; they note that he oversaw al-Jāmiʿ al-Mabrūr for a period and that new elements had been introduced.
(2) Biographical entries on Yūsuf al-Qamīnī appear in al-Rawdatayn (pp. 202–203); Mirʾāt al-Zamān, vol. I, p. 348; Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. XIV, p. 869; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalā’, vol. XXIII, pp. 302–303; al-ʿIbar, vol. V, p. 240; and Shudhūrāt al-Dhahab, vol. VII, p. 500. He is buried at the maqām of Ibn ʿArabī, which Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī visited in al-Ḥaqīqa wa-al-Majāz fī Riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa-Miṣr wa-al-Ḥijāz (vol. I, p. 78). Nabulusī records that he placed there, along with his servant Maḥmūd, a risāla entitled al-Ḥawḍ al-Mawrūd fī Ziyārat al-Shaykh Yūsuf wa-al-Shaykh Maḥmūd. Two manuscripts of this treatise are preserved in the Ẓāhiriyya Library in Damascus (nos. 4008 and 3671) (al-Ḥaqīqa wa-al-Majāz, p. 275).
(3) In his sources (al-Qamīnī), Nabulusī reports that al-Qamīnī is pronounced with an open qāf and a kasrah on the mīm, whereas people often geminate the mīm, associating it with Qamīn al-Ḥammām. Al-Qāmūs al-Muḥīṭ defines qamīn — akin to amīr — as the fire chamber of a bathhouse. I note that Damascenes pronounce it Qammīm. Shihāb al-Khafājī hints at this in Shifāʾ al-Ghalīl (p. 416), stating that qammīm denotes a fire hearth, and that the Shaykh Yūsuf al-Qammīmī was so named because he lived in the hearth of Nūr al-Dīn al-Shahīd’s bathhouse (al-Ḥaqīqa wa-al-Majāz, p. 78).
(4) Manuscripts A and B read tajḥaf; in his sources it appears as taknis al-arḍ (“it sweeps the ground”).
(5) In the printed edition: makshūfa, and raʾs is treated as masculine. According to al-Anbārī (p. 302), it may be masculine or feminine.
(6) Manuscripts A and B read: wa-lahu aḥwāl wa-kushūf kathīra (“and he has many states and unveilings”).
(7) The passage between “the two encirclements” in manuscripts A and B reads: wa-dhālika annahum lā yaʿlamūn anna al-kushūf qad tuṣdīr min al-muʾmin wa-al-kāfir, kamā kāna Ibn Sayyād, wa-min al-birr wa-al-fājir (“and this is because they do not know that unveilings may be granted to both believers and unbelievers, as in the case of Ibn Sayyād, and to both the pious and the wicked”).
(8) Manuscripts A and B read: fa-man wāfaqa ḥāl al-kitāb wa-al-sunnah, fa-huwa ḥāl ṣāliḥ, sawāʾ kāshif am lā (“So whoever conforms to the state of the Book and the Sunnah, his condition is sound, whether he experiences revelation or not”).
(9) Found only in the printed edition.