Shaqīq al-Balkhī said, “ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s eyesight was gone for twenty years, yet neither his household nor his children ever realized it.”
Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah related: “Ibn Abī Rawwād was among the most forbearing of people, but when the hadith students began to flock to him he exclaimed, ‘You have left me as though I were a snarling dog!’ ”
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muqrīʾ said, “I have never seen anyone who could stand in prayer for so long with such patience as ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Rawwād.”
Khalād ibn Yaḥyā reported: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Rawwād told us, “It used to be said: One of the hallmarks of humility is to be content with the lowliest seat in a gathering.”
ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Yazīd Mardawayh narrated—on the authority of Ibn ʿUyaynah—that ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Rawwād once said to a brother of his, “Lend us five thousand dirhams until the pilgrimage season.”
The merchant was pleased and brought the money over, but when night fell he thought, “What have you done, Ibn Abī Rawwād? You are an old man, and I am likewise; we do not know what may befall us. My children will not recognize my right over this sum. If I am still alive at dawn, I shall go to him and absolve him.”
At daybreak he came to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, told him what he had resolved, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz said, “O Allah, grant him better than what he intends!” He then prayed for him and added, “If you are merely consulting me, understand that we borrowed this for Allah’s sake: whenever its thought grieves us, Allah uses it to expiate our sins. But once you release us from it, that benefit is lost.”
The merchant disliked contradicting him, yet before the pilgrimage season arrived the man died. His children came to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz saying, “Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, our father’s money!”
He replied, “It is not yet ready, but the deadline between us is the coming pilgrimage season.”
They left, and when the next season arrived the money was still not ready. They said, “How easy it is for you to display humility, yet you take people’s property!”
He lifted his head and said, “May Allah have mercy on your father; he used to fear exactly this outcome. Nevertheless, our term is the coming season, and if not, then you are released from anything I have said.”
He went on: “One day while I was sitting behind the Station of Abraham, a servant who had fled to India with ten thousand dirhams returned and informed me that he had traded with the money and now possessed an incalculable fortune.”
Sufyān continued, “I heard him say, ‘All praise is Yours! We asked You for five…’ ”