Muntakhab al-tawarikh 104.1

104.1

He was descended of the line of ‘Alī, but he was not wont to proclaim his descent, on account of his being a foreigner. He was one of the greatest of the learned men of the age, excelling in devotion, piety, and holy endeavour, turning not aside from the path of the law, and, firmly seated in the corner of contentment, was constantly occupied in giving religious instruction. His grasp of all branches of knowledge, both of those which demand the exercise of the reasoning faculty and of those which depend upon the memory, was such that there was hardly a standard work, from light treatises on accidence to books of law and medicine and the commentary on the Miftāh and the ‘Azudī which he had not either written a commentary on or annotated, and the people were continually profited by his auspicious sayings. God, may He be praised, is known by his epithet, “the Healer,” and He made the Miyān a manifestation of that name, so that every day the sick and afflicted, in countless numbers, used to wait upon him and beseech him to pray for them, and would speedily experience the effects of that prayer. He never went of his own accord to the houses of worldly men, but only once or twice in the course of his life, and then in obedience to a summons, and unwillingly. He did not even leave his house and private masjid for the Friday congregational prayers. His house was the resort of the greatest and best men of the age.