Later biographers were not satisfied with the bare facts of his decease. Murtadha gives a far more interesting story. “When death drew near to the Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, he commanded his servant, an excellent and religious man, to dig his grave in the middle of his house, and to summon the people of the neighbouring villages to attend his funeral; that they should not touch him, but that a company of three men unknown in the region of Al-ʾIraq would come out of the desert, that two of them would wash him, and the third would undertake the prayer over him without the advice or command of any one. Then, when he died, the servant did according to all that he had commanded, and required the presence of the people. And when the people gathered to attend the funeral, they saw three men who had come out of the desert. Two of them began to wash the corpse, while the third vanished and did not appear. But when they had washed him and arranged him in the grave-clothes, and carried his bier and laid it on the edge of the grave, the third appeared wrapped in his robe with a black border on both sides, turbaned with wool, and he prayed for him and the people prayed with him. Then he gave the benediction and departed and hid from the people. And some of the excellent of the people of Al-ʾIraq who were present at the funeral had noticed him carefully, but did not know him until some of them heard a _Hatif_ in the night saying to them, ‘The man who led the people in prayer is Abu ʾAbd Allah Mohammed b. Ishaq Amghar, the Sharif. He came from the farthest Maghrib, from ʾAyn al-Qatr, and those who washed the corpse are his comrades Abu Shuʾayb Ayyub b. Saʾid and Abu ʾIsa Wajih.’ And when they heard that they journeyed from Al-ʾIraq to Sanhaja of the farthest Maghrib, and when they had reached them and asked of them their prayers, they returned to Al-ʾIraq and related it to the Sufis and published their miracle (_karama_). Then a company of them, when they heard that, went to visit them and found them to be those whom they noticed carefully, and they asked of them their prayers. And this is a strange story.”[52] An equally remarkable story is told of the death of Al-Ghazali’s younger brother in the books of the Persian mystics.[53] The verses given might well apply to Al-Ghazali himself and his views of life and death. “Moghith related, on the authority of Kadiri tradition, how the famous Ahmed-Al-Ghazali, native of Tus in Persia, said one day to his disciples, ‘Go and bring me new and white garments.’ They went; and on returning with the objects required, found their master dead; by his side was a paper on which were written the following stanzas: