Al-Marwadhī said, “I saw Abū ʿAbd Allāh rise for his nightly wird (devotional portion) a little after midnight and remain standing until just before the pre-dawn. I also saw him bowing in prayer between Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ.”
ʿAbd Allāh reported: “More than once I heard my father in the last part of the night supplicating for certain people by name. He made many prayers, yet kept his voice low. He would pray between the two evening prayers; then, once he had performed the final ʿIshāʾ, he would offer a good number of rakʿahs, follow them with Witr, sleep briefly, and then rise again to pray.
“His recitation was soft—at times I could not make out parts of it. He used to fast continuously, then break that pattern for as long as Allah willed, but he never abandoned fasting on Mondays, Thursdays, and the three ‘white days.’ After returning from the army camp he resumed constant fasting and kept it up until he died.”
Al-Marwadhī also said, “I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh declare, ‘I performed the pilgrimage to Mecca on foot twice, and fourteen dirhams were enough for the journey.’”
Tarkuhu li-l-jihāt jumlatan (his complete refusal of official posts):
From Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā, the servant of al-Muzanī, who said: al-Shāfiʿī related, “When I entered upon al-Rashīd he said, ‘Yemen is in need of a judge; look for a man whom we can appoint.’”
(=) Specific hadith no. 147 in the Book of Leadership, chapter: The assurance of Paradise for the martyr. Its wording, on the authority of Anas ibn Malik, is as follows: “Some people came to the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, and said, ‘Send with us men to teach us the Quran and the sunnah.’ He therefore dispatched seventy men from the Ansar, known as the Qurra (reciters); among them was my maternal uncle Haram. They would recite the Quran and study it together at night, learning it, and by day they would fetch water and place it in the mosque, gather firewood, sell it, and with the proceeds buy food for the people of al-Suffa and the poor.
The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, sent them off, but their hosts ambushed them and killed them before they reached their destination. While dying they prayed, ‘O Allah, convey to our Prophet that we have met You, are pleased with You, and You are pleased with us.’ A man then approached Haram, Anas’s uncle, from behind and thrust a spear through him. Haram exclaimed, ‘By the Lord of the Kaaba, I have succeeded!’ The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, informed his Companions, ‘Your brothers have been killed, and they said, “O Allah, convey to our Prophet that we have met You, are pleased with You, and You are pleased with us.”’
For the full account, see Ibn Hisham 2/183, 187; al-Tabari 3/33; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas 2/46; Ibn Kathir 3/139, 144; and Sharh al-Mawahib 2/74, 79.