Would it be fitting for one of us in distress, seeking for God to remove it, to say: "O Overpowerer, O Destroyer"? No; rather, it is fitting to say: "O Peace (Salam), grant me peace; O Guardian, guard me." He commanded you to invoke Him for your specific distress by the name fitting for your salvation. Single Him out—glory be to Him—among His beautiful names as the Living, the All-Knowing, and the All-Powerful. This, my son—may God grant me enjoyment of you—is what has reached me and what I have learned. We ask God for attainment in the reality of His knowledge through His favor, bounty, and mercy.

Among the names of our Master—exalted be his glory—are: The King, the Truth, the Manifest, which we extracted by the success granted by God and added to what we related from our lord and sheikh Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi—may God ennoble his station. The merit belongs to him in what we present, for I am his son and his planting. Among His names—exalted be his glory—is: Death, evidenced by the word of the Almighty: {And you had certainly been wishing for death before you met it, and you have [now] seen it while you were looking on.}¹

He—exalted be his glory—used to say in war: "I am Death." By this name the Arabs called Him when He emerged against them in battle; they would say to one another: "Death has come to you."

His word—exalted be his glory—to the tested one, Abd al-Rahman ibn Muljam—peace be upon him:

Gird your loins for Death, for Death shall surely meet you.