that not a single soul in the city would be left except that he had backbitten me! For what could be more gratifying than a good deed a man finds in his record, one for which he himself did no work?

It is also narrated from him that he said: “I used to sit to teach on Fridays; when the crowd was large I rejoiced, and when it was small I felt sorrow. I asked Bishr ibn Manṣūr about this, and he replied: ‘This is an evil gathering—do not return to it.’ So I never went back.”

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Rustah said: “Yahyā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī told us that his father once stood in prayer for an entire night, as was his habit. When dawn arrived he threw himself onto the bed, and the sun rose before he had prayed Fajr. He therefore obliged himself for two months to place nothing between his body and the ground, and both of his thighs became ulcerated (1).”

Rustah also related: “I heard Ibn Mahdī say to a young man from the lineage of the governor Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān, ‘Word has reached me that you speak about the Lord, describing Him and likening Him to created things.’

“The youth replied, ‘Indeed. We have reflected and found nothing in Allah’s creation more beautiful than the human being.’ He then began to expound on form and stature. Ibn Mahdī said to him, ‘Gently, my son. Let us first speak about a created being; if we are unable to grasp it, we are even less capable with respect to the Creator. Tell me about what Shuʿbah related to me, from al-Shaybānī, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from ʿAbd Allāh concerning the verse, “Indeed, he saw some of the greatest signs of his Lord” (al-Najm 53:18).’

“He answered, ‘He saw Gabriel, who possessed six hundred wings.’ (2) The young man stood bewildered, so Ibn Mahdī said, ‘I will make it easier for you: describe for me a creature …’”