the ascetics, whereupon al-Awzāʿī said:

“We seek nothing more than to become like these people.” (1)

Saʿīd then remarked, “I have never seen anyone more abstemious than Sulaymān al-Khawwāṣ,” unaware that Sulaymān was actually in the gathering. Sulaymān thereupon drew his cloak over his head and rose to leave.

Al-Awzāʿī turned to Saʿīd and said, “Woe to you! Do you not realize what is coming out of your mouth? You are hurting our companion by praising him to his face.”

Someone said to Sulaymān, “People complain that you pass by them without giving salām.”

He replied, “By Allah, it is not because I regard myself as having any merit. I am like a dung heap: if you stir it, it gives off a stench. When I sit with people, things issue from me—some that I intend and others that I do not.”

It is reported that Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz once visited al-Khawwāṣ at night in his house in Beirut. Finding him sitting in the dark, he said, “The darkness of the grave is far worse.”

Saʿīd offered him some dirhams, but Sulaymān returned them, saying, “I dislike training my soul to accept dirhams like yours; who will give me their like when I am in need?”

When this reached al-Awzāʿī he said, “Leave him be. Had he lived among the early generations, he would have been a sign.”

24 – Salm ibn Maymūn al-Khawwāṣ *

He was younger than Sulaymān al-Khawwāṣ.

He transmitted ḥadith from Mālik, al-Qāsim ibn Maʿn, and Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah.

Among those who narrated from him were Aḥmad ibn Thaʿlabah, ʿAmr ibn Aslam al-Ṭarassūsī, and others.

Ismāʿīl ibn Maslamah al-Qaʿnabī said, “It was as though the Day of Resurrection had begun, and a herald was calling, ‘Let the forerunners rise!’ Sufyān al-Thawrī stood up; then the herald called, ‘Let …’”} } } } } } } } } } } } }