58 – Muḥammad b. al-ʿAbbās told me; Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. al-Kumayt al-Kilābī narrated to us; Muḥammad b. Abān narrated to us; he said: A man of Quraysh related to me:

Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik once received a patrician of the Byzantines, one of their leading nobles. He ordered that the man be taken to prison, chained hand and foot. One evening the jailer entered, shut the door behind him, and left. When he returned at daybreak he found the cell empty.

Several months later a letter arrived from the governor of the frontier: “I inform the Commander of the Faithful that the patrician so-and-so has been found lying outside his residence at Judaidah.”

Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik summoned the jailer and said, “Tell me, what became of that patrician?”

The jailer replied, “Will the truth save me, Commander of the Faithful?”

He said, “Yes.” So the jailer told him the whole story.

Sulaymān asked, “What was his practice? What words did he keep saying?”

He answered, “He would often repeat:
‘O You who are self-sufficient, needing none of Your creation, while none of Your creation can dispense with You! O Unique One who has no equal! All hope has been cut off except in You—help me, help me.’”

Sulaymān said, “It was by those words that he was delivered.”