17 – Ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: I was informed by Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm; Muḥammad ibn Munīb narrated to me, from al-Sarī ibn Yaḥyā, from Abū al-Mundhir, who said:

“We went on pilgrimage and camped at the foot of a towering mountain. People claimed that jinn lived there. Presently an old man came up from the water-side and I asked him, ‘Abū Shumayr, what do you locals say about this mountain of yours? Have you ever seen anything of what is alleged?’

He answered, ‘Yes. One day I took my bow and arrows, climbed the mountain—my heart trembling—and built myself a little shelter of branches beside a spring. I remained there until a herd of ibex arrived, newcomers with no fear of anything. They drank from the spring and settled around it. I shot a ram from among them and struck it right in the heart. Then a voice cried out, and there was nothing left on the mountain that did not bolt away in terror, running as though after its own shadow.

A herd of wild asses, driven down to water by the midday hush when even the birds are stilled, also appeared near Abū Shumayr. I nocked an arrow for one of them—slender as a leather strap, white, its point gleaming; people called it “Ibn al-Uṣbuʿ.”

Someone said to me, “Woe to you! Why don’t you kill it?”

I replied, “Woe to you! I cannot.”

He asked, “Woe to you! Why not?”

I said, “Because it sought refuge with Allah when it backed up against the mountain.”

When the animal heard that, it became calm.’”