Abu Bakr ibn Ja‘far al-Muzakkī said, “I heard al-Sarrāj remark:
‘Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl al-Bukhārī examined my History; he copied several fascicles from it in his own handwriting, and I read them back to him.’
It is also narrated from Abū al-‘Abbās al-Sarrāj that he once pointed to a stack of his books and said, ‘These contain seventy thousand legal questions from (Imām) Mālik. Since the day I wrote them, I have not even brushed the dust away from them.’
Abu al-Walīd Ḥassān ibn Muḥammad related: “Abū al-‘Abbās al-Sarrāj visited Abū ‘Amr al-Khaffāf, who asked him, ‘O Abū al-‘Abbās, how did you acquire all this wealth?’
He replied, ‘By spending a lifetime away—my two brothers, Ibrāhīm and Ismā‘īl, and I. My brother Ibrāhīm was absent for forty years, my brother Ismā‘īl for forty years, and I remained in Baghdad for forty years. We lived on coarse, hard fare (1) and wore rough clothing, and in this way the money accumulated. But you, O Abū ‘Amr—how did you amass your fortune?’
(Abū ‘Amr owned a vast estate.) Then al-Sarrāj recited:
Do you recall when your blanket was a sheep’s hide,
and when your sandals were cut from camel skin?
Glory be to Him who granted you a kingdom
and taught you how to sit upon the throne. (2)
Abū al-‘Abbās ibn Ḥamdān, the shaykh of Khwarazm, said, “I heard al-Sarrāj say:”