al-Thawrī.

When the crowd finally dispersed, the camel-driver stepped forward and said, “We did not recognize you, Abū ʿAbd Allāh.”

Sufyān replied, “Whoever ruins other people’s food deserves worse than a mere blow.”

I remark: This report is mursal, and it is hard to imagine that Sufyān’s standing remained hidden for the whole journey; perhaps it occurred in his younger days.

Yahyā ibn Yamān narrated that Sufyān said, “Keep company with whomever you wish, then anger him, and afterward send someone to ask him about you.”

Qabīṣah transmitted from Sufyān: “A large circle of ‘brothers’ is a mark of shallowness in one’s religion.”

He also related from him: “Reduce the number of people you know, and the amount of backbiting you suffer will likewise diminish.”

Qabīṣah added, “When you looked at Sufyān you would think him a monk; yet once he began reporting hadith, you could scarcely recognize him.”

I say: Sufyān was overtaken by an intense, unsettling fear of Allah.

Ibn Mahdī said, “When we sat with him it was as though he were already standing for the Reckoning.”

ʿAththām ibn ʿAlī heard him say, “I have feared Allah with such dread—how astonishing that I do not die! My appointed term still remains; I only wish it might be eased, for I fear this terror will drive me out of my mind.”

Ḥammād ibn Dulayl reported: “I heard al-Thawrī say, ‘I ask Allah to relieve me of some of the fear I have of Him.’”

Ibn Mahdī said, “Night after night I watched Sufyān rise in alarm, crying, ‘The Fire! The Fire!’ The remembrance of Hellfire has kept me from sleep and from desires.” (1)

Abū Nuʿaym said, “Whenever Sufyān mentioned death, no benefit could be had from him for days.”