Ibn Abī Ḥāzim said: “I once entered, together with my father, upon Ṣafwān while he was in his prayer-niche. My father kept urging him until he got him to lie back on his bed. No sooner had we left than his maid came and told him, ‘The very moment you stepped out, he passed away.’

Kathīr ibn Yaḥyā narrated—on the authority of his father—that when Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik arrived in Madinah, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was the city’s governor. Sulaymān led the people in the ẓuhr prayer, then opened the door of the private enclosure, leaned against the miḥrāb and faced the congregation. Catching sight of Ṣafwān ibn Sulaym, he said to ʿUmar, ‘Who is that man? I have never seen anyone with a more dignified bearing!’ ʿUmar replied, ‘That is Ṣafwān.’ Sulaymān called out, ‘Boy! A purse containing five hundred dinars.’

The servant brought it, whereupon Sulaymān said to him, ‘Take it to that man who is standing over there.’ The servant came, sat down beside Ṣafwān—who was still praying—then greeted him. When Ṣafwān turned to him, he asked, ‘What do you need?’ The servant replied, ‘The Commander of the Faithful says: “Use this to help you with your circumstances and your dependants.”’ Ṣafwān said, ‘I am not the one you were sent to.’

The servant asked, ‘Are you not Ṣafwān ibn Sulaym?’ ‘Indeed,’ he answered. ‘Then you are the very person I was sent to.’ Ṣafwān said, ‘Go back and make certain.’ The boy turned away; Ṣafwān picked up his sandals and left, and was not seen again until Sulaymān departed from Madinah.

Al-Wāqidī, Ibn Saʿd, Khalīfah, Ibn Numayr, and a number of others stated: Ṣafwān died in the year 132 AH. Abū Ḥassān al-Ziyādī said: He lived for seventy-two years. Ibn ʿUyaynah related that Ṣafwān had sworn never to lay his side on the ground until he met Allah, Exalted is He.

Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Hibat-Allāh ibn ʿAsākir at the foot of Qāsiyūn informed us; al-Muʾayyad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī—by audition—told us; Hibat-Allāh ibn Sahl told us; Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad al-Baḥīrī told us; Abū ʿAlī Zāhir ibn Aḥmad al-Faqīh told us; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad told us; Abū Muṣʿab Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Zuhrī narrated to us, from Mālik, from Ṣafwān ibn Sulaym, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, from Abū Saʿīd, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: