One day Hasan Basri was preaching when Hejaj ben Yusuf, the bloodthirsty and formidable governor of Irak, accompanied by a great number of his retinue with drawn swords, entered the mosque. A person of distinction in the audience said, "We must watch to-day whether Hasan will be embarrassed by the presence of Hejaj." When the latter had taken his place, Hasan Basri, without paying the least attention to him, so far from shortening his discourse, prolonged it. When it was finished, the person who was watching him exclaimed, "Bravo, Hasan!" When he came down from the pulpit, Hejaj came forward, and, taking him by the hand, said, addressing the people, "If you wish to see him whom the Lord has distinguished among you, come and look on Hasan Basri." Hasan had in his heart such a fear of the Lord that, like a man seated near an executioner, he was always in a state of apprehension. Seeing one day a man who wept, he asked him what was the matter. "To-day," answered the man, "I heard a preacher say that there were a great many among the Moslems who, by reason of their sins would remain several years in hell, and then be taken out." "May God grant," cried Hasan, "that I be one of those who come out of hell at last; may I be even as that man, who, as the prophet of God said, will come out eighty-four years after all the rest." One night he was overheard weeping and groaning in his house. "Why these tears and laments?" he was asked. "I weep," he answered, "thinking that perhaps to-day I have set my foot in an unlawful place, or allowed an evil word to escape my lips which will cause me to be chased from before the throne of the most high. 'Away!' it will be said to me; 'thou hast no access here, thy works of piety are not accepted.' And what answer shall I make? Behold the reason of my fear." One of his sayings was, "I never saw a certainty of which there is no doubt bear a greater resemblance to a doubtful thing of which there is no certainty than death does."