“O Ibn al-Madini, to whom the glittering world was offered—
you squandered your faith so that you might obtain it.
What moved you to adopt a doctrine
whose advocate you once pronounced an unbeliever?
Did its right-guidance suddenly become clear to you, so you followed it,
or was it the flower of this world that you were eager to pluck?
I remember you once austere and uncompromising,
firm upon a creed to which others were summoned in vain.
Disgraced is the one whose religion is harmed,
not the one who merely loses a she-camel and her calf. (1)

Ibn Makhlad al-‘Attar narrated to us: ‘Umar ibn Sulaymān al-Mu’addib said:
“I performed the tarawih with Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal; he was leading the prayer in his uncle’s house. When he finished with witr, he raised his hands up to his chest, and we heard nothing of his supplication. In the mosque there was a single lamp on the stairway; there were no other lanterns, no mat, and no saffron perfume.”

Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad said: I said to my father, “News has reached me that Aḥmad al-Dawraqī was given a thousand dinars.”
He replied, “My son, ‘But the provision of your Lord is better and more lasting’ (Tāhā 20:131).”

I also mentioned to him Ibn Abī Shaybah, ‘Abd al-A‘lā an-Narsī, and the other ḥadith scholars who had been taken to the camp. He said, “It was only a few days, then they rejoined the rest, and they gained nothing of any consequence from it.”

Ṣāliḥ said: My father told me, “During the time of high prices your mother used to spin very fine thread and sell each skein for two dirhams or so, and that was our sustenance.”

Ṣāliḥ added: “We would sometimes buy something and hide it from him, lest he rebuke us for it.”

Al-Khallāl narrated to us: al-Marwadhi said:
“I saw Aḥmad ibn ‘Īsā of Egypt, together with a group of ḥadith scholars, enter upon Abū ‘Abd Allāh at the camp. Aḥmad said to him, ‘O Abū ‘Abd Allāh, what is this grief? Islam is an upright, easy faith—a spacious house.’ He then looked …”