Ibn Abī al-Zinād narrated—from Hishām, from his father—who said, “I used to cling to a lock of hair on my father’s back (1).

It is also related from al-Zuhrī, through Qabīṣah ibn Dhuʾayb, who said:

‘During the caliphate of Muʿāwiyah, right up to its very end, we would gather at night in a study circle in the mosque: myself, Muṣʿab and ʿUrwah the two sons of al-Zubayr, Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Miswar, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, and ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUtbah. By day we dispersed. I for one would sit with Zayd ibn Thābit, who, in the eras of ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī, was the leading authority in Madinah for adjudication, legal opinions, Qurʾān recitation, and the laws of inheritance. Later, Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and I would sit with Abū Hurayrah, while ʿUrwah outstripped us by virtue of his free access to ʿĀʾishah (2).

Hishām reported from his father: ‘ʿĀʾishah did not pass away until three years after I had stopped visiting her’ (2).

Mubārak ibn Faḍālah narrated—from Hishām, from his father—that he used to say to us while we were still young men: ‘Why do you not seek knowledge? If you are (3) the youngsters of your people today, before long you will be their elders. What good is an old man who is old yet ignorant? I remember myself, four years before ʿĀʾishah’s death, saying, “If she were to die today, I would not regret any hadith she possessed, for I have already memorised it all.” A report would reach me from a Companion; I would go to him and find that he had indeed spoken it, so I would sit at his door and then question him about it’ (4).