He said: We were in Firabr, and Abū ʿAbd Allāh was putting up a ribāṭ (a small lodge) on the road that leads to Bukhārā. A large crowd gathered to assist him, and he himself was carrying the bricks. I kept telling him, “You have no need to do that, Abū ʿAbd Allāh,” but he would reply, “This is what will profit us.”

Then he began to haul the zanbarāt (1) as well. He had slaughtered a cow for the workers, and when the pots were done he invited the people to eat. About a hundred persons, or even more, turned up—far more than he had expected. We had brought from Firabr some bread that had cost three dirhams, or a little less, and we threw it down before them. Everyone present ate, and a good number of loaves were still left over.

In those days five amnās (2) of bread could be had for a single dirham (3).

He went on: Abū ʿAbd Allāh might pass the whole day without tasting so much as a thin wafer; at times he would take only two or three almonds.

He avoided adding the common seasonings to stews, such as chick-peas and the like. One day he said to me, almost as though a bystander were chatting with a friend, “Abū Jaʿfar, we need a sizeable amount for the year.”

I asked, “How much?”

He replied, “I need four thousand dirhams a year—five thousand at most.”

He continued: He was extraordinarily charitable. When someone from the people of ḥadīth had a need, he would take him by the hand and slip him between twenty and thirty dirhams—sometimes less, sometimes more—without anyone else noticing.

His money pouch never left his side.

I saw him several times hand a man a purse containing three hundred dirhams—the man later told me the amount. When the man tried to pray aloud for him, Abū ʿAbd Allāh said, “Softly; busy yourself with another ḥadīth so that no one becomes aware of this.”

He added: I had bought a house for nine hundred and twenty dirhams, and he said to me