1438. ʿAbd Allah narrated to us, my father narrated to us, Muʾammal ibn Ismaʿil narrated to us, Thabit said:

I set out with al-Hasan to visit Safwan ibn Muhriz. We found him in a leaning hut made of reeds. His son came out to us and said, “He is suffering from severe stomach pain; you will not be able to go in to him.”

Al-Hasan replied, “If some of your father’s flesh and blood are taken away, and thereby his sins are expiated, that is better for him than for him to die intact, only for the soil— or, he said: for the earth — to consume him while he receives no reward for it.”