Al-Marwadhī said, “When Abū ʿAbd Allāh was indoors, he would usually sit cross-legged, composed and reverent. Out in public, however, that intense humility was not outwardly apparent, and I would often come in while a fascicle was in his hand and he was reading it.

His Travels and Memorisation:
Ṣāliḥ related: “I heard my father say, ‘I travelled to Kūfah and lodged in a house where the only thing under my head was a single brick. I then performed the pilgrimage and returned to my mother, though I had not sought her permission.’”

Hanbal reported: “I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh say, ‘I married when I was forty years old, and Allah bestowed abundant good thereafter.’”

Abū Bakr al-Khallāl states in his book The Manners of Aḥmad—one volume: “Zuhayr ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad dictated to me, saying, ‘My grandfather married ʿAbbāsah bint al-Faḍl, an Arab woman, and she bore him no child other than my father; then she died. After her he married Rayḥānah, who bore ʿAbd Allāh—my uncle—and she too died. He then purchased Ḥusn, who bore Umm ʿAlī Zaynab, and later bore al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn as twins (1), but they died shortly after birth. She subsequently bore al-Ḥasan and Muḥammad, who lived until they were almost forty years old, and after that she gave birth to Saʿīd.’”

It was said that ʿAbd Allāh’s mother was blind in one eye and that she remained with him for many years.

Al-Marwadhī added: “Abū ʿAbd Allāh told me, ‘I used to attend the kuttāb (elementary school), and afterwards the dīwān (the administrative bureau), when I was fourteen years old.’”