To return: one of the earliest male devotees of whom we have distinct note is Ibrahim ibn Adham. He was a wanderer of royal blood, drifted from Balkh in Afghanistan to al-Basra and to Mecca. He died in 161. Contempt for the learning of lawyers and for external forms appears in him; obedience to God, contemplation of death, death to the world formed his teaching. Another, Da’ud ibn Nusayr, who died in 165, was wont to say, “Flee men as thou fleest a lion. Fast from the world and let the breaking of thy fast be when thou diest.” Another, al-Fudayl ibn Iyad of Khurasan, who died in 187, was a robber converted by a heavenly voice; he cast aside the world, and his utterances show that he lapsed into the passivity of quietism. Reference has already been made in the chapter on jurisprudence to the development of asceticism which came with the accession of the Abbasids. The disappointed hopes of the old believers found an outlet in the contemplative life. They withdrew from the world and would have nothing to do with its rulers; their wealth and everything connected with them they regarded as unclean. Ahmad ibn Hanbal in his later life had to use all his obstinacy and ingenuity to keep free of the court and its contamination. Another was this al-Fudayl. Stories—chronologically impossible—are told how he rebuked Harun ar-Rashid for his luxury and tyranny and denounced to his face his manner of life. With such an attitude to those round him he could have had little joy in his devotion. So it was said, “When al-Fudayl died, sadness was removed from the world.” [Sidenote: PASSAGE OF ASCETICISM TO ECSTASY]