Khulayd ibn Abd Allah al-Asri

Khulayd ibn Abd Allah al-Asri was an ascetic of Basra of the Successors' generation, from whom Qatada and Thabit transmit; Ahmad ibn Hanbal gives him a chapter titled "Reports of Khulayd al-Asri" in Kitab al-Zuhd. ¹

• On the believer: Qatada relates from him that you find the believer in only three places: a mosque he keeps alive, a house that shelters him, or some worldly need that is no harm. ¹ He relates that you find the believer "chaste yet asking, mighty yet lowly, rich yet poor": chaste towards people and asking of his Lord, lowly before his Lord and mighty in himself, rich without people and poor towards his Lord; Qatada comments, "Those are the manners of the believers." ²
• On loving God: Qatada relates that he came on a Friday, took hold of the two doorposts and said: Brothers, is there any of you who does not want to meet the one he loves? Then love your Lord and travel to Him nobly. ¹
• On mosques: everything has its adornment, and the adornment of mosques is people helping one another to remember God. ²
• On trusts: a servant whose need drove him to take something held in trust, trusting in God, who spent it without waste intending to repay, and whom death prevented from repaying, has his creditor satisfied by God on his behalf, according to a saying attributed to him. ¹

Thabit relates that he would pray the dawn prayer in his people's meeting place and remember God until sunrise, then have his room swept and two cushions set out, close his door and welcome his Lord's angels, saying he would let them witness good from him; then he would glorify, praise and magnify God until sleep overcame him or he went out to pray. ^{1 2} Qatada also relates a saying of his describing the tent of paradise. ³

• The scan's machine reading gives his nisba as "al-Asri", "al-Misri" and "al-Umari"; the form "Khulayd ibn Abd Allah al-Asri", as in the second report, is used here.
• Not to be confused with the commander Khulayd ibn Abd Allah al-Hanafi, who has a separate entry.