They were a band of frivolous pranksters: they would throw a purse of silver coins into the street and watch it. When someone bent down to pick it up, they would shout at him and put him to shame.
So Abū al-Ashʿath taught them to keep another purse filled with bits of glass. Whenever they took the purse of dirhams and its owner cried out, they would at once put the glass purse in its place (1).

I say: He died in Ṣafar of the year 253 AH.

His narrations are transmitted with an elevated chain in “Juzʾ al-Ḥaffār,” in the “Thaqafiyyāt,” and elsewhere.
He lived a little over ninety years, and he possessed the loftiest isnād of anyone who remained in Basra.

ʿAbd al-Ḥāfiẓ ibn Badrān and Yūsuf ibn Ghāliyah informed us; they said: Mūsā ibn ʿAbd al-Qādir informed us; Saʿīd ibn al-Bannāʾ informed us; ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad informed us; Abū Ṭāhir al-Mukhlis narrated to us; Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn al-Muqdam narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Zayd narrated to us, from Abū ʿImrān al-Jawnī, who said:

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rabāḥ wrote to me: “I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr say, ‘I came early to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He heard two men raising their voices while disputing over an āyah. He came out to us, anger showing on his face, and said, “Indeed, those before you were destroyed only because of their disputes concerning the Book.”’ ”

This is an authentic hadith (2), and it indicates the prohibition of disputation and discord.