[AI] I came to Kufa, and I had no concern there except Uways al-Qarani: I searched for him and asked about him until I happened upon him sitting alone on the bank of the Euphrates at midday, performing ablution and washing his garment. I recognized him by the description. There he was: a fleshy man, dark-complexioned, intensely so; hairy, with a shaved head—meaning he had no forelock—thick-bearded, wearing a woolen waist-wrapper and a woolen cloak, without shoes; large-faced, and very awe-inspiring in appearance. I greeted him, and he returned my greeting and looked at me and said, “May God give you life—who are you?” I extended my hand to him to shake his, but he refused to shake my hand and said, “And you—may God give you life.” I said, “May God have mercy on you, O Uways, and forgive you. How are you—may God have mercy on you?” Then jealousy choked me, from my love for him and my tenderness toward him because of what I saw of his condition, until I wept and he wept. Then he said, “And you—may God have mercy on you, O Harim ibn Hayyan. How are you, my brother? Who guided you to me?” I said, “God.” He said, “There is no god but God. Glory be to our Lord: surely the promise of our Lord is to be fulfilled,” when he named me. By God, he had never seen me, nor had I seen him. Then I said, “How did you recognize me, and know my name and my father’s name? For by God I had never seen you before this day.” He said, “The All-Knowing, the All-Aware informed me. My spirit recognized your spirit when my soul spoke to your soul: spirits have breaths like the breaths of the living. The believers recognize one another and converse by God’s Spirit even if they have not met, and even if they have not spoken; they come to know one another, even if lands are distant from them and homes separate them.”
He said: I said, “Tell me a hadith from the Messenger of God ﷺ that I may memorize from you.” He said, “I did not meet the Messenger of God ﷺ, nor did I have companionship with him. I have seen men who saw him, and what has reached me of his hadith is as what has reached you. I do not like to open this door upon myself—so that I become one who relates traditions, or a judge, or one who gives legal opinions; a person has enough to occupy him, O Harim ibn Hayyan.” He said: I said, “My brother, recite to me verses from the Book of God so I may hear them from you, for I love you for God with a strong love. And supplicate with prayers and give counsel with an admonition that I may preserve from you.” He said: he took my hand on the bank of the Euphrates and said, “I seek refuge in God, the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing, from Satan the accursed. In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.” He gasped once, then wept in his place, then said: “My Lord—exalted be His mention—has said, and most rightful of speech is His speech, most truthful of discourse is His discourse, and best of words is His word: {And We did not create the heavens and the earth and what is between them in play; We created them only in truth} [al-Dukhan 39],” until he reached, “{except whom God has mercy upon; indeed He is the Mighty, the Merciful} [al-Dukhan 42].” Then he gasped again and fell silent. I looked at him, thinking he had fainted. Then he said, “O Harim ibn Hayyan, your father has died, and you are soon to die; and Abu Hayyan has died—either to Paradise or to the Fire. Adam has died, and Eve has died, O son of Hayyan; and Noah has died, and Abraham, the intimate friend of the Most Merciful, O son of Hayyan; and Moses, the one spoken to by the Most Merciful, has died, O son of Hayyan; and David, the vicegerent of the Most Merciful, has died, O son of Hayyan; and Muhammad, the Messenger of the Most Merciful, has died, and Abu Bakr, the caliph of the Muslims, has died, O son of Hayyan; and my brother, my chosen one, and my friend, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, has died.” Then he said, “Oh ‘Umar!” May God have mercy on ‘Umar—while ‘Umar at that time was still alive, and that was at the end of his caliphate. He said: I said to him, “May God have mercy on you—‘Umar ibn al-Khattab is still alive.” He said, “Yes, if you understand: you have already understood what I said— I and you are among the dead; it has already been.” Then he invoked blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ and made brief supplications. Then he said, “This is my counsel to you, O Harim ibn Hayyan: the Book of God; keeping company with the righteous among the Muslims; and prayer and peace upon the Prophet ﷺ. I have announced death to myself and announced it to you; so keep remembrance of death—do not let it leave you even for a moment. Warn your people when you return to them, and advise all the people of your religion. Strive for your own soul, and beware, beware of separating from the جماعت (the community), lest you separate from your religion without realizing and enter the Fire on the Day of Resurrection.”
Then he said, “O God, this man claims that he loves me for Your sake and has visited me for Your sake. O God, show me his face in Paradise, and admit him to me as a visitor in Your abode, the Abode of Peace. Preserve him so long as he remains in the world, wherever he may be; gather up for him what he has lost; make him content in this world with little; and whatever You give him of this world, make it easy for him; and make him, for what You give him of Your blessing, among the grateful; and reward him with the best reward. I entrust you to God, O Harim ibn Hayyan. Peace be upon you and the mercy of God.”
Then he said to me, “You will not see me after today—may God have mercy on you—for I dislike fame, and solitude is dearer to me, because I am deeply sorrowful and heavily burdened with care so long as I remain alive in this world among these people. Do not ask about me, and do not seek me. Know that you are in my mind even if I do not see you and you do not see me; remember me and pray for me, for I will remember you and pray for you, God willing, exalted is He. Go—here,” until he took this way. He said: I was eager to walk with him for an hour, but he refused, so I parted from him—he weeping and I weeping. He said: I kept looking at his back until he entered one of the alleys. How often I sought him after that and asked about him, yet I found no one who could tell me anything about him. May God have mercy on him and forgive him. No week passed over me except that I saw him in my sleep once or twice—or as he said.