Ahmad ibn ‘Isa al-Misri reported: Khayran ibn al-‘Ala’—one of the finest companions of al-Awzaʿi—told me:
“Al-Awzaʿi once entered the public bath. The bath-keeper had an errand to run, so he locked the door behind him and left. When he later returned and opened the door, he found al-Awzaʿi dead, his body turned toward the qiblah.”

Ibn Zabr related: Ishaq ibn Khalid told us, and Abu Mushir told us:
“The report reached us that al-Awzaʿi had died and that his wife, unintentionally, had shut the bathhouse door on him, whereupon he passed away. Saʿid ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz instructed her to free a slave in expiation. He left behind nothing but six dinars that remained from his stipend; he had been enrolled in the register of the coastal frontier.”

Al-ʿAbbas ibn al-Walid ibn Mazid said: I heard ʿUqbah ibn ʿAlqamah say:
“The cause of al-Awzaʿi’s death was this: he had dyed his beard, then entered the bath that was inside his house. His wife brought in a brazier filled with charcoal so that he would not feel the cold, and she closed the door on him from the outside. When the charcoal flared up, he was overcome; he tried to open the door but could not, collapsed, and we found him lying with his arm as a pillow, facing the qiblah.”

Al-ʿAbbas ibn al-Walid also told me: Salim ibn al-Munzir said:
“When I heard the hubbub over al-Awzaʿi’s death, I went out. The first person I saw was a Christian who had strewn ashes over his head, and the Muslims of Beirut still remember that gesture in his favor. Four communities followed his funeral: the Muslims bore the bier, while the Jews walked in one group, the Christians in another, and the Copts in a third.”

Ibn al-Madini said: “Al-Awzaʿi died in 151 AH.”

I (the author) say: This is incorrect.

Hisham ibn ʿAmmar, on the authority of al-Walid ibn Muslim, said that it was in 156 AH—but Hisham was mistaken, for Safwan ibn Salih transmitted from al-Walid—and others as well—together with al-Walid ibn Mazid, Yahya al-Qattan, Abu Mushir, and several others, that he died in the year