When that appointed day arrived, I went to him and found him in the courtyard picking lice from his clothes. He said, “Have you not yet brought the bed—meaning the bier? Fetch it before someone else gets to it first!”

I asked, “What are you saying, may Allah have mercy on you?”

He replied, “It is exactly as I have told you. In a dream I saw a bird alight on one corner of this dome, and I heard it say, ‘So-and-so is a Qadari; so-and-so is such-and-such; ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀtikah is an excellent man; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Awzāʿī is the best of those who walk the earth; and you will die on such-and-such a day.’ ”

He (the narrator) said, “The noon prayer had not yet come before he died, and his funeral procession was taken out.”

Walīd ibn Mazīd said, “In devotion to worship al-Awzāʿī was on a level we have never heard of anyone else attaining. Not once did the sun pass its meridian without his being on his feet in prayer.”

Marwān al-Ṭāṭarī reported that al-Awzāʿī said: “Whoever lengthens his standing in the night prayer, Allah will make the standing on the Day of Resurrection easy for him.”

Ṣafwān ibn Ṣāliḥ said: “Walīd ibn Muslim used to say, ‘I have never seen anyone strive harder in worship than al-Awzāʿī.’ ”

Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah al-Ramlī related: “I heard Ḍamrah ibn Rabīʿah say, ‘We performed ḥajj with al-Awzāʿī in the year 150 AH, and I never once saw him lying down in the camel-litter (1) by night or by day. He would be praying; and when sleep overcame him he leaned against the packsaddle.’ ”

Salmāh ibn Salām said: “Al-Awzāʿī stayed with my father, and we spread a bed for him. At dawn it was just as we had left it. I removed his leather socks and found them lined with fox fur.”

Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd al-Jawharī said: “Bishr ibn al-Munḏir narrated to us, ‘I saw al-Awzāʿī looking as if he were blind because of the intensity of his humility.’ ”

Ibn Zabr reported: Isḥāq ibn Khālid narrated to us: I heard Abū Mushir say, “No one was ever seen…"

(1) A covered litter or howdah mounted on a camel.