It is related of him that he said:
“I was once in Qalyūb, with a heap (1) of wheat before me. A hornet came, took one grain and flew away; then it returned and took another (and flew away with it), and came back again, doing so four times. (2) I followed it and found that it was placing each grain in the beak of a blind sparrow among the trees over there.
He also said:
Shaykh (3) ʿAbd al-Kāfī told me that he once attended a funeral where a black slave was present with us. (4) When the people performed the funeral prayer he did not join them, (5) and when we reached the burial he looked at me and said, “I am his deeds.” He then threw himself into that man’s grave. (6) I looked, but could see nothing there. (7)
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Yaman (8) Amīn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad (ibn al-Ḥasan) Ibn ʿAsākir al-Dimashqī
He renounced high office and property, resided in Mecca for thirty years devoted to worship and asceticism, and won acceptance among the people of Syria, Egypt, and beyond. He passed away in the Prophet’s City (9) on the second of Rajab of that same year. (10)
[Then the year 687 AH began]
In that year:
Al-Shujāʿī arrived from Egypt in Syria intending to confiscate the wealth of the affluent (among the people of Syria).
In the latter part of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir Shaykh Nāṣir al-Dīn [son of Shaykh Shams al-Dīn] (11) ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Maqdisī arrived.
(1) The term subrah (with damma) denotes food gathered without measure or weight. See al-Qamus under sabr.
(2) In manuscript B: fa-dhahabtu fatabaʿtuhu (“I went and followed him”).
(3) In manuscript B: al-shaykh aṣ-ṣāliḥ (“the righteous shaykh”).
(4) In manuscript B: fa-idhā bi-ʿAbd (“when suddenly it was ‘Abd”).
(5) In manuscript B: al-nās lam yuṣallī maʿanā falammā (“the people did not pray with us, so when…”).
(6) In manuscript B: fī al-qabr qāl (“in the grave he said…”).
(7) Al-Dhahabi states: “He was al-‘Izz al-Harrani, a distinguished, eloquent shaykh, though he frequently experienced ecstatic convulsions (khasf)” (Tārīkh al-Islām 15:574–575). He undoubtedly refers to anecdotes of this kind narrated by Bashar.
(8) For the biography of Abū al-Yaman Ibn Asākir, see Tārīkh al-Islām 15:572; also in Mustadrak ‘alā al-‘Ibar (4), al-I‘lām bi-Wafayāt al-A‘lām (286), al-Ishārah (376), Fawāt al-Wafayāt (2:328), Mir’āt al-Jinān (4:22), al-Dalīl al-Shāfī (1:413), and Shudhūrāt al-Dhahab (7:692).
(9) In manuscript B: qawl ‘āmm min al-Shāmiyyīn wa al-Miṣriyyīn wa ghayrihim; thumma kānat wafātuhu bi-al-Madīnah al-Nabawiyyah (“a common view among the Syrians, Egyptians, and others; then his death occurred in the Prophetic City”).
(10) Al-Dhahabi notes that he died in mid-Jumādā al-Ūlā, although others report he died at its beginning (narrated by Bashar).
(11) In manuscript B only: the biography of Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Nūḥ al-Maqdisī appears in al-Dāris (1:269) and Shudhūrāt al-Dhahab (7:717).