It is also related from Sufyān: “Had the people of hadith not come to me, I would have gone to them.”

The remainder of this section will follow ⦗1⦘.

Al-Firyābī transmits from Sufyān, who said:
“I entered upon al-Mahdī and said, ‘I have been informed that ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—spent only twelve dinars on his pilgrimage, while you live in the luxury you enjoy.’

He became angry and said, ‘Do you want me to live as you do?’

I replied, ‘If not as I do, then at least at a level less than what you are in now.’

His minister then said, ‘Your letters reached us and I dispatched them.’

I said, ‘I have never written you a single line ⦗2⦘.’

Al-Khuraybī reports from Sufyān: “I have never spent a dirham on construction.”

Yahyā ibn Yamān relates from Sufyān: “If livestock knew of death what you know, you would not eat a single plump animal.”

Ibn Yamān added, “I have never seen anyone like Sufyān; the world turned toward him, yet he turned his face away from it.”

Abū Aḥmad al-Zubayrī said, “I was with Sufyān in al-Khayf Mosque ⦗3⦘ when a herald called out, ‘Whoever brings us Sufyān will receive ten thousand.’”

It was said that because he was being sought, he fled to Yemen. There, something was stolen and they accused Sufyān of it.

He said, “They brought me before Maʿn ibn Zāʾida ⦗4⦘—a letter had already been sent to him requesting my arrest—and they told him, ‘This man has stolen from us.’

Maʿn asked, ‘Why did you steal their property?’

I replied, ‘I have not stolen anything.’

He said to them, ‘Step aside so that I may question him.’

Then he turned to me and asked, ‘What is your name?’

I said, ‘ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.’

He said, ‘I adjure you by Allah—state your lineage.’