in the late afternoon, intent on carrying out my decision; but the moment I saw him, my heart would not allow me to leave him.

That same night he received word that a kinsman of his had died in Basra, leaving wealth with no heir but him, so he ordered me to sit in his place. No sooner had he departed than questions came to me that I had never heard from him before. I answered them and wrote my replies down. He was absent for two months and then returned.

I laid the questions—about sixty in number—before him. He concurred with me on forty and differed with me on twenty, so I swore that I would never leave him until he died.

Allah knows best how authentic this story is, and, Allah knows best, we are unaware that kalām even existed at that time.

Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-ʿIjli said: My father related to me that Abu Hanifah said, ‘I arrived in Basra thinking no question would be put to me without my having an answer. They asked about matters for which I had no reply, so I bound myself never to part from Ḥammād until he died, and I kept his company for eighteen years.’

Shuʿayb ibn Ayyub al-Ṣarīfīnī reported: Abū Yaḥyā al-Ḥimmanī narrated to us: I heard Abu Hanifah say, ‘I had a dream that frightened me: it was as though I were exhuming the grave of the Prophet ﷺ. I therefore went to Basra and sent a man to ask Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn about it. He asked him, and Ibn Sīrīn said, “This is a man who is unearthing the reports of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.”’

The hadith scholar Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad al-Marwazī said: Ḥāmid ibn Ādam related to us; Abū Wahb Muḥammad ibn Muzāḥim related to us; I heard ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak say, ‘Had Allah not helped me through Abu Hanifah and Sufyān, I would have been like everybody else.’

Ahmad ibn Zuhayr narrated: Sulaymān ibn Abī Shaykh told us; Ḥujr ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār told me: It was said to al-Qāsim ibn Maʿn, ‘Would you be content to be counted among the attendants of Abu Hanifah?’ He replied, ‘No people ever sat with anyone from whom they derived more benefit than from sitting with Abu Hanifah.’ And al-Qāsim said to him, ‘Come with me…’