ʿUmar kept me with him for a year and then said, “I have tested you and closely observed you; I found your public conduct commendable, and I hope that your private state is the same as your public one. We used to say that what destroys this community is every hypocrite who is learned.”

al-ʿIjli said: “Al-Ahnaf was a Basran, reliable, and the chief of his people. He was blind in one eye, knock-kneed, plain in appearance, short, and almost beardless (1). He had only one testicle. ʿUmar detained him for a year to examine him, and then said, ‘By Allah, this man is truly a leader.’”

Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatadah, said:

Al-Ahnaf arrived and delivered a sermon, and ʿUmar was struck by his eloquence. He told him, “I used to fear that you were a learned hypocrite; return to your land, for I now hope that you are a believer.”

Al-Ahnaf said: “I lied only once. ʿUmar asked me about a garment—‘How much did you pay for it?’—and I reduced the price by two-thirds.”

Yunus ibn Bukayr reported: al-Sari ibn Ismaʿil narrated to us, from al-Shaʿbi, who said:

Abu Musa sent a delegation from Basra to ʿUmar, among whom was al-Ahnaf ibn Qays. Each man spoke about his own affairs, and al-Ahnaf was the last of them. He praised Allah and extolled Him, and then said:

“To proceed, Commander of the Believers: the people of Egypt have taken up the dwellings of Pharaoh and his court; the people of Syria the dwellings of Caesar and his followers; and the people of Kufah the dwellings of Chosroes, together with his waterways and gardens—living as snugly as an eye in its socket and like a calf in the womb (2), their fruits reaching them before they even ripen. But the people of Basra have settled in a salty, barren land…"