from me?”

Ibn al-Mubarak replied, “This man will not give up until we have to strip the stick for him.”

He then wrote to him:
“O you who turn knowledge into a hunting falcon
that seizes the wealth of the poor …”
—the verses already cited (1).

When Ibn ʿUlayyah read those lines, he rose from the judge’s bench, stepped onto Hārūn al-Rashīd’s carpet, and pleaded, “By Allah, by Allah, have mercy on my grey hair, for I cannot endure making a mistake.”

The caliph said, “Perhaps that madman stirred you up.”

He then released him from the post, whereupon Ibn al-Mubarak sent him the purse of money (2).

This story is objectionable, for al-ʿAyshī relates it from the two Hammāds, yet both of them had died long before the alleged incident; most likely al-ʿAyshī inserted it.

Sahl ibn Shādhawayh said: I heard ʿAlī ibn Khashram say, “I said to Wakīʿ, ‘I saw Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah drinking nabīdh until he had to be carried on a donkey; someone had to take him back to his house.’

Wakīʿ replied, ‘If you see a Basran drinking, suspect him.’

I asked, ‘Why?’

He said, ‘Because the Kufan drinks it thinking it is a religious act, whereas the Basran avoids it out of religious scruple’ (3).”

This is a peculiar report. We know of no one who ever criticized Ismāʿīl for drinking an intoxicant. Still, a few ḥadīth scholars turned away from him without any proof. Mansūr ibn Salamah al-Khuzaʿī, for example, was once narrating when his tongue slipped and he said, “Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah narrated to us….” He immediately corrected himself, “No—and no honour to him! I meant Zuhayr.” He added, “The one who has committed a sin is not like the one who has not; by Allah, I made him repent.”