with Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-ʿAwṣī there is a copy, with Abū Ghassān al-Nahdī a copy, and with Yaḥyā ibn Fuḍayl a copy—until he went on to say:

‘I have not found for him any hadith that is objectionably irregular or exceeds the accepted bounds; in my estimation he is one of the truthful.’

I say: He has no narration in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī; rather, al-Bukhārī only cites him in the chapter on Testimonies (1). He was, nevertheless, one of the foremost imams qualified for ijtihād.

Wakīʿ said: ‘Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ, his brother, and their mother divided the night into three parts. Each of them would stand (in prayer) for one third. When their mother died, the two brothers split the night between them; then ʿAlī passed away, so Ḥasan spent the whole night in prayer by himself.’ (2)

Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī related: ‘I never saw anyone upon whose face fear and humility were more manifest than on Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ. One night he stood reciting, “About what are they asking one another?” (Quran 78:1), whereupon he fell unconscious and did not finish the sūrah until dawn.’ (3)

Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ said, ‘More than once I have woken up without a single dirham, yet it feels as though the entire world has been placed at my disposal.’ (4)

He also said, ‘Satan opens for a servant ninety-nine doors of good, intending through them a single door of evil.’

On another occasion he sold a slave-girl and told the buyer, ‘She once spat up blood while with us.’ (5)

Wakīʿ declared, ‘In my view Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ is an imam.’

Someone objected, ‘But he does not invoke mercy for ʿUthmān.’

He replied, ‘Do you, then, invoke mercy for al-Ḥajjāj?’