90 – Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to me; Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim, the incense-seller of al-ʿAnbar, narrated to me, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, who said:

While I was circling the House and a Bedouin was walking beside me in silence, he completed his circumambulation, went to the Station and prayed two units, then came and stood facing the Kaʿbah and said:

“My God, who is more liable to slip and fall short than I, when You have left me weak? And who is more entitled to pardon me than You? Your knowledge concerning me is pre-eternal, and Your decree encompasses me. I obeyed You by Your permission—and the bounty is Yours; I disobeyed You with Your full knowledge—and the proof is Yours. So I ask You, by the inevitability of Your proof against me, the collapse of my own proof, my need of You, and Your independence of me, not to leave me without forgiving me.”

Sufyān said: I experienced a joy the like of which I do not remember ever feeling when I heard him utter those words.