and yet the knowledge stored within my heart had already enriched me, as had the grey that streaks my hair;
Still, I know that a reminder will stir an intelligent soul—
so long as it comes from men of genuine substance.

I read this before Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Ṭāʾī. He said: “The judge Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Hibat Allāh ibn Mumayl al-Shāfiʿī related to you—in the year 630 AH at his house—saying: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAlī al-Kharqī told us; Naṣr ibn Aḥmad al-Sūsī told us; Sahl ibn Bishr told us; ʿAlī ibn Munīr al-Khallāl told us; my maternal uncle Aḥmad ibn ʿAtīq al-Khashshāb related to me; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Aṣbaġ told us; Hāshim ibn Marthad told us; I heard Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Farrāʾ say, ‘I heard Ibn al-Mubārak recite:

A person is like the crescent when first sighted—
frail to the eye, then steadily rounded;
until, when the twin cycles of the months overtake him,
he begins to wane, then is finally effaced.’

From the History of Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Ṣadafī: Muḥammad ibn Waḍḍāḥ narrated from Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Laythī, who said:
“We were in the company of Mālik when permission was sought for ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak to enter. Mālik assented, and we saw him shift aside in his seat and place Ibn al-Mubārak right next to him. I never saw Mālik move over for anyone else. As the reader continued reciting to Mālik, he would occasionally come to a point and Mālik would ask, ‘What position do you people hold on this?’ or ‘What do you have regarding this?’ I then saw Ibn al-Mubārak answer him. When he rose and left, Mālik was struck by his courtesy and said to us, ‘That man is Ibn al-Mubārak, the jurist of Khurāsān.’ ”

Al-Musayyab ibn Wāḍiḥ related: “Ibn al-Mubārak sent forty thousand dirhams to Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, saying, ‘With this, quell the turmoil of the people around you.’ ”

Ibn al-Mubārak was once asked a legal question in the presence of Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah. He responded, “We have been forbidden to speak while our elders are present.”