only to find that the money had already been forwarded to my father. He soon regained his former post, built up his fortunes once more, and dispatched me with the repayment. I spoke to al-Faḍl, whereupon he exclaimed, “Shame on you! Have you turned yourself into your father’s banker? Leave my presence—keep the money for yourself!”
So I returned the funds to my father, and he bestowed upon me one million dirhams.

People also relate that a man who claimed some connection to al-Faḍl once came before him. “Good sir,” al-Faḍl asked, “what do you need?”
“My threadbare clothes speak for me,” the man replied.
“And what is this connection you claim?”
“I am of your own age, one of your neighbors, and my name is the same as yours.”
“And how do you know the circumstances of your birth?”
“My mother told me,” he said, “that she delivered me on the very morning you were born. Word reached her that night that Yaḥyā ibn Khālid had been granted a son and they had named him al-Faḍl, so in honor of you she called me al-Fuḍayl.”
Al-Faḍl smiled and ordered that forty-five thousand dirhams be given to him, together with a mount, and afterward appointed him to a bureau post.

Al-Faḍl was later subjected to two hundred lashes when his property was confiscated; he almost died, and a surgeon nursed him for some time afterward.

30 – al-Aḥmar ʿAlī ibn al-Mubārak*
Known as the master of Arabic, ʿAlī ibn al-Mubārak—some say ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan—was a disciple of al-Kisāʾī and once debated Sībawayh. Thaʿlab said: “Aside from everything else he knew by heart, al-Aḥmar could recite forty thousand verses as corroborative evidence….”