the next morning Yaʿqūb arrived and came in. He said, “Abū ʿAbd Allāh, the Commander of the Faithful conveys his greetings and says, ‘I wish to take comfort in your nearness and seek blessing through your supplication. I have therefore sent you ten thousand dirhams to help with the expenses of your journey.’” He then produced a purse containing a sealed money-bundle (budrah) with about two hundred dinars, the remainder being full-weight dirhams. Imām Aḥmad did not even glance at it. Yaʿqūb tied the purse back up and said, “I will return tomorrow to see what you decide,” and left.
I brought a green basin and poured the coins over the bundle. Near sunset my father said, “O Ṣāliḥ, take this and keep it with you,” so I placed it by my head on the roof. In the pre-dawn hours he called, “Ṣāliḥ!” I got up and went to him. He said, “I have not slept at all tonight.” I asked, “Why is that, Father?” He began to weep and said, “I had been spared dealing with these people, and now, at the very end of my life, I am being tested by them. I have resolved to distribute this money when morning comes.” I replied, “That is for you to decide.”
When morning broke he said, “Ṣāliḥ, bring me the scales, and summon the descendants of the Emigrants and the Helpers.” Then he said, “Send also to the family of so-and-so.” He kept distributing the entire sum until the purse was shaken out empty—while we ourselves were in circumstances that only Allah knows. The postal official wrote that he had given away the dirhams that very same day, even down to the purse itself.
ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm relates: I said, “O Commander of the Faithful, everyone already knows that he accepted from you, and what need has Aḥmad for money when his sustenance is but a single loaf?” He replied, “You have spoken the truth, ʿAlī.”
These reports transmitted by the Imām’s two sons, who lived most closely with their father, constitute the clearest evidence of Imām Aḥmad’s righteousness, piety, detachment from the world, and scrupulousness.
As for his humility, Ibn al-Jawzī⦗1⦘ said: “It reached me from Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Munādī that …”