367 – Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Bazzār narrated to us, from ʿAlī ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Ḥimṣī, who said: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh related to us, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bajalī and others. They said:

A man from Najrān came to Muʿāwiyah. People claimed that, on the day he arrived, he was two hundred years old. Muʿāwiyah asked him about this world, and the man replied:

“It is a cycle of lean years and a cycle of plentiful ones—one day followed by another, one night followed by another. A child is born and someone else perishes. Were it not for the newborn, creation would vanish; and were it not for the dying, the earth would grow cramped for those who live on it.”

Muʿāwiyah then said to him, “Ask what you wish.”

The man said, “Can you restore a lifetime that has already elapsed, or repel a death whose time has arrived?”

Muʿāwiyah answered, “I have no power over that.”

The man replied, “Then I have no need of you,” and he recited:

Seek your provision from God and be content with His decree,
for hardship swiftly turns as easy days appear.

While a man walks among the living, joyful and secure,
lo, he becomes a grave that swirling winds obscure.