Childhood and working life
The Arabic biography gives his birth in al-Salihiyya, beside the Hanbali mosque in Damascus, in 1318 AH. His father died while he was a child. His mother arranged his elementary Qur’anic education, and at twelve he began learning stonecutting.
He worked for many years around Mount Qasioun, carving stone basins and other objects while maintaining his religious practice and study. The source presents honest work, care for his family and spiritual discipline as parts of a single life.
Religious formation and public life
The account describes military service beginning in 1917 and his return afterwards to his trade. It also records participation in the Syrian struggle against French colonial rule. These episodes belong to the biographical narrative and are not expanded here into a separate military history.
His scholarly and spiritual contacts included Badr al-Din al-Hasani, Muhammad ibn Jafar al-Kattani, Muhammad al-Hashimi and other Damascene teachers. The long Arabic lists document a network of relationships; they should not all be assumed to describe identical forms of discipleship.
He expressed the relation of religious law and spiritual reality through the image of an eye: the law is its pupil and reality its light. The eye cannot see without light.
Study and teaching
In later life he devoted considerable attention to religious books and works on the natural world. The biography lists writings on subjects including anatomy, astronomy, geology, plants and electricity. His students helped produce legible copies of his manuscripts, and he was reluctant to publish them during his lifetime.
His gatherings often took place in the homes of friends and students. Books read there included the Risala of al-Qushayri, Riyad al-Salihin, Ihya Ulum al-Din and other works of devotion and learning. The source also records praise for his commentary on Ibn al-Arabi’s Ma la Yuawwal Alayh.
Ethics and the accounts of marvels
The biography contains many expressions of admiration from contemporaries. It portrays him as humorous, generous, modest and reluctant to seek fame. Mustafa al-Sibai’s testimony particularly stresses his ability to guide people towards integrity and his refusal to turn Sufism into a pursuit of money or status.
It also relates miracles and healing stories. These are devotional testimonies transmitted by the source, rather than independently established events. This abridgment omits the treatment details. The text itself attributes to al-Harun the insistence that faith and upright conduct matter more than extraordinary feats, and that a marvel cannot excuse conduct contrary to religious law.
Generosity and legacy
Stories of giving away flour and helping a family obtain housing illustrate the source’s portrait of his generosity. It says that he lived simply and retained little property beyond his home.
The biography gives his death as 19 Jumada I 1382 AH and his burial beside Shaykh Arslan al-Dimashqi, in accordance with his wish. Its connection to the Akbarian tradition is especially visible through his pupil Mahmud al-Ghurab, whom he encouraged to read the Futuhat. He belongs among later spiritual teachers and readers of Ibn al-Arabi, not Ibn al-Arabi’s contemporaries.