From the Commander of the Faithful (AS): Let not your brother be stronger in cutting you off than you are in keeping ties with him, and let him not be stronger in doing ill than you are in doing good. (al-Durra al-Bahira, vol. 1, p. 18)
The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: Beware lest your brother be more diligent in breaking off than you are in joining, and lest he be more capable of doing evil than you are of doing good.
From the Commander of the Faithful (AS): Generosity is the abandonment of all expectation at the moment of giving. (al-Durra al-Bahira, vol. 1, p. 20)
The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: The truly generous man gives and has no expectation whatsoever.
From the Commander of the Faithful (AS): A gathering of knowledge is a garden of Paradise. (al-Durra al-Bahira, vol. 1, p. 20)
The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: A gathering of knowledge is one of the gardens of Paradise.
The book al-Muhtadar, devoted to establishing that a person in the throes of death — that is, on the threshold of death — sees the Prophet and the Shi'i Imams with his own eyes, was composed by Hasan ibn Sulayman al-Hilli, one of the students of al-Shahid al-Awwal. In this book he refutes the views of al-Shaykh al-Mufid, since al-Mufid gave a figurative interpretation to the hadiths bearing on this subject. In this work the author also treats a variety of other matters, such as the virtues of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) and of their Shi'a, and censure of certain of their opponents. This book has also been referred to as al-Muhtadar wa ma yarahu fi hal al-ihtidar and as Manaqib al-A'imma. This treatise, together with al-Raj'a and Mukhtasar al-Basa'ir, was among al-Majlisi's sources in composing Bihar al-Anwar. Al-Majlisi praised al-Hilli for his learning and juristic competence and regarded all his works as worthy of trust. Al-Muhtadar was printed in Najaf in 1330 SH / 1951, edited by Muhammad Ali Ardubadi al-Gharawi.
Hasan ibn Sulayman al-Hilli, who died in 802 AH or later, was a Shi'i scholar of the eighth century and a student of al-Shahid al-Awwal. He also stands within the chain of transmitters of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya. His most famous book is Muntakhab, or Mukhtasar, Basa'ir al-Darajat, which contains hadiths on the excellences and virtues of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS). No precise information is available about the date of Hasan ibn Sulayman's birth or the events of his life. Aqa Buzurg Tihrani held his birthplace to be Hilla, though he resided in Qum. No student of al-Hilli has been recorded. Certain materials — among them the supplication against the two idols of Quraysh, the Mushaf of Fatima, the Ashab al-Kitab, and others — were first transmitted in an exaggerated form and without a chain of transmission by Hasan ibn Sulayman; before him there is no trace of them in this form and detail in Shi'i narrations. One must be entirely cautious with regard to what he alone has transmitted.