Abu Dawud al-ʿAttar reported: “Sahnun sold some olives he owned for eight hundred dirhams, handed the sum over to me, and I distributed it on his behalf as charity.

It was said that when the Maghazi of Ibn Wahb was read aloud to him, tears would stream from his eyes; and when the Zuhd of Ibn Wahb was recited, he would weep.

Yahya b. ʿAwn narrated: “I entered with Sahnun upon Ibn al-Qassar while he was ill. Sahnun asked, ‘What is the source of this anxiety?’ He replied, ‘Death—and the approach to Allah.’ Sahnun said, ‘Do you not affirm the messengers, the resurrection and the reckoning, Paradise and Hell; that the best of this nation is Abu Bakr, then ʿUmar; that the Qurʾan is the speech of Allah, uncreated; that Allah will be seen on the Day of Resurrection; that He rose above the Throne; and that one must not rise against the imams with the sword, even if they act unjustly?’ He answered, ‘Indeed, by Allah.’ Sahnun replied, ‘Then die whenever you wish—die whenever you wish.’

Sahnun also said: “We have grown old and our manners have worsened, yet Allah knows I raise my voice at you only to discipline you.”

He likewise said: “No question has ever confounded me without my finding its resolution in the books of Ibn Wahb.”

It was related that a student said, “I saw in a dream as though Sahnun were rebuilding the Kaʿba. The next morning I went to him and found him reading to the people the treatise on the rites of pilgrimage that he had compiled.”

It was further said that he heard hadith from Hafs b. Ghiyath, Ishaq al-Azraq, Wakiʿ, Yahya b. Sulaym al-Taʾifi, ʿAbd Allah b. Tulayb al-Muradi, Buhlul b. Rashid, ʿAli b. Ziyad al-Tunusi, ʿAbd Allah b. ʿUmar b. Ghanim al-Ruʿayni, Shuʿayb b. al-Layth al-Misri, Maʿn al-Qazzaz, Abu Damrah al-Laythi, Yazid b. Harun, and many others.