He would go into a small room of his, shut the door, and I had no idea what he was doing until I heard one of his little boys copying the sound of his sobbing; the child’s mother hushed him. I asked her, “What is going on?”
She answered, “Abū al-Ḥasan goes into that room, recites (the Qur’an), and weeps. The child hears him and imitates him. Whenever he intends to come out, he washes his face and puts on kohl so that no trace of the weeping can be seen.” (1)

He used to help some people and clothe them, saying to the courier, “See to it that they never find out who sent it.” Since the day I began accompanying him, I have never known him to give anyone less than one hundred dirhams—unless he truly could not manage more. (2)

He would say to me, “Buy me black barley, for it will end up in the latrine. And buy only what will suffice me from one day to the next.”

On one occasion I bought him white barley, cleaned it, and ground it. When he saw it, his complexion changed and he said, “If you have refined it like this, then feed it to yourself. Perhaps you have deeds with Allah that allow you to eat the pure kind. As for me, I have travelled all over the earth, and by Allah I have never seen a soul that prays and is worse in my eyes than my own. With what plea could I face Allah if I were to feed it the refined? Take this food away, and every day buy me, for a small coin, some coarse barley, (4) and buy me a hand-mill; bring it to me so that I may grind it with my own hand and eat it—hoping thereby to reach the level at which ʿAlī and Fāṭimah (may Allah be pleased with them) once were.” (5)

When a son was born to him he handed me some dirhams and said, “Buy two large rams, sacrifice them, and with ten dirhams buy flour and bake it.”

I did so and sifted the flour. He then gave me another ten dirhams and said, “Buy flour with this too, but do not sift it.”

Then he added, “The ʿaqīqah is a sunnah, and sifting…"