“I was afraid that you might rise while still drowsy, fall, and that I would be branded the most ill-omened creature among the Arabs.” He liked her presence of mind, kept her with him for seven further days, and presented her with a gift. (1)

Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir said: A man once came to al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī seeking his help and found him in retreat (iʿtikāf). Al-Ḥusayn excused himself, so the man went to al-Ḥasan and asked him instead. Al-Ḥasan satisfied his need and remarked, “To fulfil the need of a brother for the sake of Allah is dearer to me than remaining in retreat for a whole month.”

Hushaym narrated, through Manṣūr, from Ibn Sīrīn: Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī would not invite anyone specifically to his food, saying, “Food is too insignificant for people to be summoned to it. Whoever wishes to eat, let him eat; we confer no favour upon anyone in that.” (2)

Abū Jaʿfar also related that ʿAlī proclaimed, “People of Kūfah, do not marry your daughters to al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, for he is given to divorce.” A man from Hamdān replied, “By Allah, we shall still marry him: what he approves he will keep, and what he dislikes he will release.”

Abū Bakr al-Kharāʾiṭī stated in his book Makārim al-Akhlaq: Ibrāhīm ibn al-Junayd (3) told us, al-Qawārīrī told us, ʿAbd al-Aʿlā told us, from Hishām, from Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, who said: Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī married a woman and sent her one hundred maidservants, each carrying one thousand dirhams.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated, from al-Thawrī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from his father, from al-Ḥasan ibn Saʿd, from his father: Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī granted two women, at the time of divorce, twenty thousand dirhams and a skin-full of honey. One of them—apparently the Ḥanafiyyah—recited:
“A paltry gift from a beloved who departs.”

Al-Wāqidī (4) reported—ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar told me, from his father, from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn—that al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī was much given to divorce, yet he never separated from a wife except that she still loved him.

Juwayriyyah ibn Asmāʾ said: When al-Ḥasan died, Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam wept at his funeral. Al-Ḥusayn said to him, “Do you weep for him when you used to make him endure what you did?” He replied, “I did that to someone more forbearing than this,” and pointed to a mountain. (5)