Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān al-Nasāʾī reported: I heard Qutaybah relate that he heard Shuʿayb ibn al-Layth say:

“I set out for the ḥajj with my father. When he reached Madinah, Mālik ibn Anas sent him a tray of fresh dates. My father placed one thousand dinars on the tray and sent it back to him.”

Ismāʿīl Sammūyah said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ narrated to us:

“I accompanied al-Layth for twenty years. He never lunched or dined except in the company of others, and he would eat nothing but meat unless he happened to be ill.”

Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿIyāḍ al-Mufriḍ related: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAmr al-Ghāfiqī told us, ‘I heard Ashhab ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz say:

“Every day al-Layth held four separate sittings. In the first he would meet with the deputy of the ruler to deal with public grievances and needs, and the governor himself would come to him. If al-Layth objected to something done by the judge or the governor, he would write to the Commander of the Faithful, and a decree of dismissal would soon arrive.

“The second was for the scholars of hadith, and he used to say, ‘Make things easy for the shopkeepers, for their hearts are tied to their stalls.’

“The third was for legal questions: people would gather around him and pose their queries.

“The fourth was to attend to people’s personal needs; never did anyone ask him for something—great or small—and find himself turned away.

“In winter he would feed the people harāʾis seasoned with bee honey and clarified cow’s butter, and in summer almond sawiq mixed with sugar. ⦗1⦘”

Through this same chain to the preacher Abū Bakr: al-Barqānī informed us; Abū Isḥāq al-Muzakkī informed us; al-Sarrāj informed us: I heard Qutaybah say:

“We returned with al-Layth ibn Saʿd from Alexandria. He travelled with three ships: one carried his kitchen, the second his family, and the third his guests. When the time for prayer arrived, he would disembark to the shore and perform the prayer. His son Shuʿayb served as his imam. We went ashore to perform Maghrib, and he said, ‘Where is …’”