Among those who narrated from him were Ibn Rāhwayh, Naṣr ibn Ziyād, al-Faḍl ibn Muḥammad al-Shaʿrānī, and several others.
He also possessed real talent in both verse and prose.
Al-Maʾmūn appointed him over Egypt and Ifriqiya, then over Khurasan, and he reigned as an obeyed sovereign—skilled in governance, awe-inspiring, generous, celebrated—one of the consummate men of his age.
It is said that on one occasion he endorsed a stack of petitions for monetary gifts amounting to two million seven hundred thousand.
Abū Tammām traveled to his court and composed panegyrics for him.
He used to say, “A bulging purse and an illustrious reputation rarely come together.”
Yet after all this, he still left behind forty million dirhams!
When illness struck, he repented, smashed the instruments of amusement, and ransomed the captives.
He died at al-Khānūq in 230 AH, at the age of forty-eight.
- ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Asmāʾ al-Ḍubaʿī (cited by al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasāʾī)
The son of ʿUbayd ibn Mukhāriq—or, some say, ibn Mikhrāq—the imam, master memorizer, exemplar, and devout scholar; Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḍubaʿī of Basra.