This was despite the fact that the man died inside the Citadel, incarcerated by order of the Sultan, while many jurists and even humble folk circulated about him all manner of stories that would offend the sensibilities of the followers of other religions—let alone those of the Muslims. Such, nevertheless, was his funeral.

He said:
“His death occurred in the pre-dawn hours of the aforementioned Monday. The muezzin of the Citadel announced it from the minaret, and the guards on the bastions passed the word along; by morning everyone had heard of this grave and momentous calamity. People rushed at once to the Citadel from every place they could reach, even from the Ghūṭa and the Marj. The market-folk cooked nothing that day and many of the shops that ordinarily open at first light remained shut. Tankiz, the viceroy of the Sultanate, happened to be away hunting, and the authorities were at a loss as to what to do. The minister Shams al-Din Ghabriyāl, deputy governor of the Citadel, arrived; grief overcame him and he sat beside the shaykh. He opened the Citadel gate to allow the shaykh’s intimates, companions, and loved ones to enter. A multitude of his closest disciples, state officials, and other residents of the city and of Ṣāliḥiyyah gathered in his hall, sitting by him, weeping and groaning—

‘For one like Laylā a man would lay down his life.’(1)

I was among those present, together with our teacher, the hadith master Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī—may Allah have mercy on him. I uncovered the shaykh’s face, looked at him, and kissed him. Upon his head was a turban with a pinned tail, and his hair had grown much whiter than when we last saw him. His brother, Zayn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, informed the gathering that since the shaykh had entered the Citadel the two of them had completed eighty full readings of the Quran and had begun the eighty-first. In that final recitation we had reached the close of ‘The Hour has drawn near’:

‘Indeed, the righteous will be amid gardens and rivers, in a seat of truth near a Sovereign, Perfect in Ability.’ (Q 54:54-55)

At that point the two righteous and virtuous shaykhs—ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Muḥibb and the blind ʿAbd Allah al-Zurʿī, whose recitation the shaykh, may Allah be merciful to him, delighted in—began from the opening of Sūrah al-Raḥmān and continued until they completed the entire Quran, while I sat there, hearing and seeing all.

They then began to wash the shaykh, and I stepped out to a nearby mosque. No one remained with him except those engaged in the washing—among them our teacher, the hadith master al-Mizzī, and a group of eminent, righteous men, the virtuous, people of knowledge and faith.(2)(3) They had scarcely finished when the Citadel was filled to capacity and the people broke into tears, praises, supplications, and prayers for mercy. They then bore him toward the Great Mosque, taking the route