with bread—and, on occasion, with a few grapes and dates.

He once said to me: “Your mother would sit in the dark spinning the finest thread, then sell the finished skeins for about two dirhams, a little more or a little less. That was our sustenance. Whenever we bought anything, we would hide it from him so that he would not see it and rebuke us. Sometimes bread would be baked for him, and he would put into a small clay pot some lentils, a bit of fat, and a few Shahriz dates (1). The neighbourhood children would come by; he would call one of them over, hand the pot to him, and they would laugh and not eat it.

He often took vinegar as his main condiment.

He (ʿAbd Allāh) said: My father also said, “If I possess no coin at all, I am pleased.”

When he performed ablution (wuduʾ) he would not allow anyone to draw the water for him. If I happened to fall ill, he would take a cup of water, recite over it, and then say, “Drink from it, and wash your face and hands with it.”

He owned a cap that he had sewn himself, stuffed with cotton; whenever he rose in the night he would put it on.

At times he would pick up an adze, go out to the tenants’ courtyard, and do some manual work with his own hands.

He once fell ill and sought medical treatment.

He would sometimes go to the grocer, buy a bundle of firewood or whatever else was needed, and carry it home himself.

He would heat his bath-water at home.

One winter’s day he said to me, “I want to go to the bathhouse after Maghrib. Tell the bath-keeper.” A little later he sent word: “I have decided not to go in,” and he heated the water and bathed at home instead.

I often heard him supplicating, “O Allah, grant safety; grant safety.”

With this same chain, Aḥmad ibn Sinān narrated to us:

A message was sent to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in the place where he was