Abū Bakr ibn ʿAlī al-Marwazī said: I heard Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn remark,
“Among Ibn ʿAwn’s disciples, none was more knowledgeable than Azhar.”

It is reported that Azhar had been a companion of Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr before the latter assumed the caliphate. When al-Manṣūr became caliph, Azhar travelled to congratulate him. The caliph ordered, “Give him one thousand dinars, and tell him: do not come again.” Azhar accepted the money, but returned the following year. They kept him waiting and then admitted him to the public audience.

The caliph asked, “What has brought you?”

He replied, “I heard you were ill, so I have come to visit you.”

The caliph said, “Give him one thousand dinars. You have fulfilled the duty of visiting the sick, so do not return, for I rarely fall ill.”

Azhar came back yet another year and entered during a general session. The caliph asked, “What brings you this time?”

He answered, “A supplication I once heard from you—I have come to memorise it from you.”

The caliph exclaimed, “Good man, that prayer is never answered! Every year I use it to beseech Allah that you not come to me, yet you still come!” (1)

He died in 203 AH at the age of ninety-four.

167 – Wahb ibn Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim ibn Zayd al-Azdī * (ʿA)

The son of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shujāʿ; a ḥāfiẓ, reliable, eminent imām—Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Azdī of Basra.