376 – Ahmad ibn Ibrahim related to us; he said: my brother told me; he said: ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi narrated to us, from Hammad ibn Zayd, from Hisham, from al-Hasan, who said: “The whole of this world, from its very beginning to its very end, is nothing but like a man who falls asleep, sees in his dream what pleases him, and then awakens.”

Ibrahim ibn ʿAbd al-Malik recited to me the verses of Sulayman ibn Yazid al-ʿAdawi: ⦗172⦘
(al-Bahr al-Kamil)

How strange your feeling of safety while life is brief, — yet the loss of a companion never ceases to alarm you!
Have you really been content to soothe yourself with idle hopes, — while every day you are being driven toward death?
After so long an experience, do not let this world deceive you — a world that bares itself for affliction and strikes its people down.
It is but a sleeping dream, or a shadow that fades away; — the man of insight is not beguiled by the like of it.
So keep supplying provisions, tirelessly, for the day of your destitution; — for whom, I ask you, are you amassing if not for your own soul?