Ibn Abī al-Dunyā reports that al-Mahdī sent letters to every provincial center forbidding anyone from the ahl al-ahwāʾ (sectarian deviants) to speak on any matter there.

Yūsuf al-Ṣāʾigh said: “When the innovators raised their heads and plunged into argumentation, he ordered that people be prevented from speaking and that no discussion be allowed.”

Dāwūd ibn Rashīd related: “A pitch-black wind sprang up, and I heard Salām the chamberlain say, ‘We feared the Resurrection had come.’ I looked for al-Mahdī in the audience hall but did not find him. There he was in a side room, prostrate on the bare earth, supplicating: ‘O Allah, do not let the nations who are our enemies gloat over us, and do not distress our Prophet because of us. O Allah, if You have taken the common folk to task for my sin, then here is my forelock in Your hand.’ He had not finished his words before the storm cleared (1).

Al-Aṣmaʿī said: “A nobleman entered upon al-Mahdī, and the caliph rewarded him. The man said, ‘Commander of the Faithful, whenever I think I have reached the utmost limit of thanking you, I find beyond it yet another horizon of your kindness. Whatever people fail to attain, Allah is beyond even that.’ ”

Al-Rabīʿ narrated that al-Manṣūr once opened the treasuries he had seized from the storehouses of Marwān al-Ḥimār (2). He counted twelve thousand bales of fine brocade, drew out one length of cloth, and said to me, “Cut from this a cloak for me, and for Muḥammad a cloak and a cap.”

He begrudged producing even a single garment for al-Mahdī; but when al-Mahdī assumed the caliphate he ordered the whole stock distributed among the retainers and servants.

It was said of al-Mahdī that he frequently appointed and dismissed officials without great cause, supervised affairs personally, released multitudes from the prisons, enlarged the Sacred Mosque and embellished it.

Abū Zurʿah al-Naṣrī said: “My father told us; Abū Khulayds told us; Mālik said: he said …”