Those who transmitted from him included Ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn Wahb, al-Muqriʾ, Abū ʿĀṣim, Hāniʾ ibn al-Mutawakkil, ʿAbd Allah ibn Yaḥyā al-Burlusī, and many others.

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and other critics graded him reliable.

Ibn Wahb said, “I never saw anyone who concealed his righteous deeds more than Ḥaywah. He was famed for having his supplications answered.”

Ibn al-Mubārak remarked, “Ḥaywah had been described to me, yet seeing him exceeded every description.”

Ibn Wahb also related: “Ḥaywah’s yearly stipend was sixty dinars. He would not go up to his house until he had given all of it in charity; then he would return home and find the same amount beneath his mattress.

“When a cousin of his heard of this, he took his own stipend, gave it all away, and then looked under his mattress but found nothing. He complained to Ḥaywah, who said, ‘I gave to my Lord with certainty, whereas you gave to Him experimentally.’”

We used to sit with Ḥaywah for lessons in jurisprudence, and he would say, “May Allah replace you for me with a pillar behind which I stand and pray”—and in the end he did so.

Aḥmad ibn Sahl al-Urdunnī narrated from Khālid al-Fazr: “Ḥaywah ibn Shurayḥ was one of the great weepers, and his circumstances were extremely tight—meaning he was poor and destitute.

“I once sat with him while he was secluded, calling upon Allah. I said, ‘Why do you not ask Allah to widen your provision?’

“He looked right and left and, seeing no one, picked up a pebble and tossed it to me; it became a nugget of gold in my palm—by Allah, I had never seen anything more beautiful. He said, ‘There is no good in this world except as a provision for the Hereafter.’ Then he added, ‘He knows best what benefits His servants.’

“I asked, ‘What shall I do with this?’ He replied, ‘Spend it.’ I was in such awe of him—by Allah—that I could not bear to give it back.”

Ḥaywah once said to one of Egypt’s deputies, “Sir, do not leave our land without arms: we are hemmed in by Copts—we know not when they may attack; by Abyssinians—we know not when they may overrun us; by Byzantines—we know not when they may descend upon our courtyard; and by Berbers—we know not when they may rise up.”

This eminent scholar died in 158 AH. It is also said that he passed away in 159.

The rest of Egypt’s righteous men were neither recorded by the author of al-Ḥilyah nor known to him.