accept them, saying, “My father had already laid out his own shroud and burial musk.”
He sent the parcel back, and when the man pressed him he said, “The Commander of the Believers has spared Abū ʿAbd Allāh from whatever offends him, and this offends him; I therefore will not take it.”

With this same chain of transmission, Ṣāliḥ reported: My father said, “Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā once came to see me— and, after Ibn al-Mubārak, Khurasan has produced no one who equals Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā. Later his son arrived and said, ‘My father has bequeathed you a padded cloak and told me to remind you of it.’ I said, ‘Bring it here.’ He came with a bundle of clothes, but I told him, ‘Go, may Allah have mercy on you,’—meaning that I did not accept it.”
Ṣāliḥ adds: Some said he did take a single garment from the bundle.

Again, with this chain, Ṣāliḥ said: I remarked to my father, “Ahmad al-Dawraqī has received a thousand dinars.” He replied, “My son, ‘The provision of your Lord is better and more lasting’ (20:131).”

With this chain my father narrated: Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī told us, from ʿUbayd al-Qārī, who said: “Ahmad’s uncle entered and asked, ‘Nephew, why all this distress and sorrow?’ Ahmad lifted his head and said, ‘Uncle, blessed is the one whose mention Allah keeps obscure.’”

With this chain I heard my father say: “When you looked at Ahmad it was clear he did not flaunt piety. I once saw him wearing sandals unlike those of the professional reciters—large-fronted, knotted, with the straps hanging loose. I also saw him clad in a waist-wrap and a striped wool cloak; in short, he was not dressed like the Qur’an reciters.”

And with this chain Ṣāliḥ related: My father told me, “Yesterday a man came— I wished you had seen him. I was sitting in the blaze of noon when someone greeted at the door; my heart lifted, so I opened it to find a man wearing a sheepskin coat and a rag on his head. Under the coat he had no shirt, and he carried no water-skin, no bag, and no staff. The sun had burned his complexion. I said to him…"