He was a person devoted to abundant worship. He was from Kufa. ʿAlī b. Muwafaq and Manṣūr b. ʿAmmār have narrated the following:
"One night I went outside my house. I thought it was already morning, but I realized it was still night. I sat down in front of a small door. Inside, I heard a young man weeping, and the weeping youth was saying:
'O my Lord, I swear by Your honor and majesty that I did not intend to rebel against You while disobeying Your commands. However, my nafs (the lower self) made that disobedience seem pleasing to me. My wretchedness overcame me, and the veil You have cast over our sins deceived me. Now, who will save me from Your punishment? If You sever the rope between me and You, to whose rope can I cling? Alas for the sins I have committed against my Lord in my past life! Woe is me. How often do I repent (tawba) and then return to sin again. Now the time has come for me to feel shame before my Lord, the Possessor of honor and majesty.' Manṣūr says: I then sought refuge with Allah and recited the following verse: 'O you who have believed, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones, over which are [appointed] angels, harsh and severe; they do not disobey Allah in what He commands them but do what they are commanded.' (al-Tahrīm 66:6)
I heard a sound and a violent tremor from inside. I got up to take care of my need. When I returned and passed by that door again, I saw that a funeral bier had been placed under the moonlight. When I asked whose funeral it was, they told me it was the young man who had been weeping inside, and that he had died as a result of the effect of the verse I had recited."