—twenty dirhams.
He said, “Put this toward buying vegetables and the like.”
So I purchased whatever I knew would please him, sent it over, and returned.
He said to me, “May Allah brighten your face! One simply cannot out-maneuver you; we would do better not to put ourselves to such trouble.”
I replied, “You have gathered the best of this world and the next. What man treats his servant with the kindness you show me? If I did not recognize that, I would recognize nothing greater.”
ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Ṣarfi recounted: “I was with Abu ʿAbd Allah in his house when a slave-girl came in and wanted to enter. She tripped over an inkwell that lay before him, so he said to her, ‘How do you walk?’
She replied, ‘If there is no path, how am I to walk?’
He stretched out his hands and said, ‘Go; I have set you free.’
Later someone asked him, ‘Abu ʿAbd Allah, did the girl anger you?’
He said, ‘If she did anger me, I have satisfied myself by what I did.’ (1)
ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAdi, the ḥāfiẓ, said: “I heard al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusayn the cloth-seller say, ‘I saw Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil as an elderly man, slight of build, neither tall nor short.’” (2)
Ghunjar reported: “Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Husayn al-Tamimi narrated to us; Abu Yaʿla al-Tamimi narrated to us; I heard Jibril ibn Mikail in Egypt say: ‘I heard al-Bukhari say: When I reached Khurasan my eyesight was afflicted. A man taught me to shave my head and wrap it with khatmi (marsh-mallow leaves). I did so, and Allah restored my sight to me.’” (3)