He was an eminent Ṣúfí, who is praised by all the Shaykhs. He associated with Abú `Abdalláh al-Abíwardí and Aḥmad b. Khaḍrúya. Sháh Shujá` came from Kirmán to visit him. He did not know Arabic, and when he went to Baghdád to visit the Shaykhs there, his disciples said to one another: “It is a great shame that the Grand Shaykh of Khurásán should need an interpreter to make him understand what they say.” However, when he met the Shaykhs of Baghdád, including Junayd, in the Shúníziyya Mosque, he conversed with them in elegant Arabic, so that they despaired of rivalling his eloquence. They asked him: “What is generosity?” He said: “Let one of you begin and declare what it is.” Junayd said: “In my opinion generosity consists in not regarding your generosity and in not referring it to yourself.” Abú Ḥafṣ replied: “How well the Shaykh has spoken! but in my opinion generosity consists in doing justice and in not demanding justice.” Junayd said to his disciples: “Rise! for Abú Ḥafṣ has surpassed Adam and all his descendants (in generosity).” His conversion is related as follows. He was enamoured of a girl, and on the advice of his friends sought help from a certain Jew living in the city (_sháristán_) of Níshápúr. The Jew told him that he must perform no prayers for forty days, and not praise God or do any good deed or form any good intention; he would then devise a means whereby Abú Ḥafṣ should gain his desire. Abú Ḥafṣ complied with these instructions, and after forty days the Jew made a talisman as he had promised, but it proved ineffectual. He said: “You have undoubtedly done some good deed. Think!” Abú Ḥafṣ replied that the only good thing of any sort that he had done was to remove a stone which he found on the road lest some one might stumble on it. The Jew said to him: “Do not offend that God who has not let such a small act of yours be wasted though you have neglected His commands for forty days.” Abú Ḥafṣ repented, and the Jew became a Moslem. Footnote 75: _Nafaḥát_, No. 44, has “Salama”. Qushayrí calls him `Umar b. Maslama. Footnote 76: So LIJ. B. has “al-Ḥaddád”, which is the form generally used by his biographers.