and he would bear it patiently, saying, “Allah is enough.”

He was neither vindictive nor hasty, deeply humble, of fine manners, ever cheerful, gentle-hearted, never harsh. He loved for the sake of Allah and hated for the sake of Allah. When a question of religion arose his anger would be stirred, yet he also endured the harm of his neighbours.

Hanbal said, “I once performed the ʿAsr prayer with Abū ʿAbd Allāh. A man called Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Khattalī, whom he knew to be upon the Sunnah, prayed with us. After the prayer Abū ʿAbd Allāh sat down, and I, he, and al-Khattalī remained in the mosque; there was no fourth person present. Al-Khattalī said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh, ‘Did you forbid Zayd ibn Khalaf from speaking to anyone?’

“He answered, ‘The people of the frontier wrote to me asking about him, so I wrote back informing them of his doctrine and of the innovations he had introduced, and I ordered them not to sit with him.’

“At this al-Khattalī launched at Abū ʿAbd Allāh, saying, ‘By Allah, I will return you to your prison and crush your ribs…,’ and he uttered many such threats.

“Abū ʿAbd Allāh said to me, ‘Do not speak to him, do not answer him.’

“Abū ʿAbd Allāh then picked up his sandals, rose, went indoors, and said, ‘Tell the household not to speak to him or respond to him.’

“Al-Khattalī kept shouting until he left. Sometime later he went to Shuʿayb, who had been appointed judge over Baghdad and in whose hand he held a bequest. He asked him about it, whereupon Shuʿayb said, ‘Enemy of Allah! Yesterday you assaulted Aḥmad, and now you come seeking the bequest? You only wished to ingratiate yourself with me by that!’

“Shuʿayb rebuked him, then dismissed him, and afterwards he was taken to the army’s ḥisbah.

“Al-Khallāl recounted several stories of people who brought gifts to Aḥmad and how he recompensed them with more than what they had given.

“Al-Khallāl said: Ibrāhīm ibn Jaʿfar ibn Ḥātim narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Junayd related to me, from Hārūn ibn Sufyān the amanuensis, who said:
‘I came to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal when he intended to distribute the dirhams that had come to him from al-Mutawakkil, and he gave me…’