to him: ‘You do not yet possess a single estate in al-Sawād, and here are one million dirhams. Buy an estate with them. By Allah, if you do so you will gladden me, but if you refuse you will anger me.’
Ṭalḥah returned the money, saying, ‘To accept it would indeed be gain, yet the bond between us stands above any increase or decrease in affection.’
I have never seen two men more generous than those two.
Aḥmad ibn Abī Ṭāhir said: ‘Aḥmad was a dour, severe-looking man toward both the elite and the common folk, yet his deeds were excellent.’
Among Aḥmad’s maxims is his statement: ‘Whoever cannot master his own soul through giving will never master his enemy through killing.’
I add: Courage and generosity are brothers; whoever withholds his wealth will never (1) lay down his life.
Aḥmad ibn Abī Khālid died in 212 AH.
67 – ʿAmr ibn ʿĀṣim al-Kilābī al-Qaysī, of Basra * (ʿ)
A ḥāfiẓ, one of the most reliable authorities.
He heard hadith from his grandfather, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Wāziʿ, Shuʿbah, Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim, Hammām ibn Yaḥyā, and their contemporaries.
Those who transmitted from him include al-Bukhārī, Abū Muḥammad al-Dārimī, and ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd,