Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab was among the most scrupulous of people concerning whatever entered his house or his stomach. He was also one of the most detached from the excesses of this world and from speaking about that which did not concern him, and he displayed the finest manners when transmitting hadith.
A man once visited him while he was ill and asked him about a hadith. Saʿīd sat up, related the report, and then lay back down. The man said, “I wish you had not burdened yourself.” Saʿīd replied, “I disliked relating something from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) while I was lying down.”
Burad, his freedman, said, “For forty years, whenever the intention for prayer was made, Saʿīd was already in the mosque.”
Ibn Idrīs said, “For fifty years Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab performed the dawn prayer with the same ablution he had used for the night prayer.”
Saʿīd used to say, “Do not gaze at the aides of the oppressors except with inward disapproval, lest your righteous deeds be rendered void.”
He also said, “Whenever Satan despairs of a door, he comes by way of women.”
He said, “No servants have ever honored themselves with anything like obedience to Allah, nor have they ever humiliated themselves with anything like disobedience to Allah, Exalted is He.”
He said, “It is enough of Allah’s support for a man that he sees his enemy occupied with disobedience to Allah.”
He said, “Whoever finds sufficiency in Allah, the people become in need of him.”
He said, “This world is base, and it inclines to every base person; more contemptible still is the one who acquires it unlawfully and spends it unlawfully.”
He said, “There is no noble person, scholar, or man of virtue who is free of fault; yet there are some whose faults should not be mentioned.”
He said, “Whoever’s merits outweigh his shortcomings, his shortcomings are forgiven on account of his merits.”
Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab married his daughter to Kathīr ⦗1⦘ ibn Abī Wadaʿah for two dirhams. She was among the most beautiful, the most courteous, the most knowledgeable of the Book of Allah and the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and the most aware of a husband’s rights. Kathīr was poor, so Saʿīd sent him five thousand dirhams—some say twenty thousand—saying, “Spend this on your needs.” The story is well known.
ʿAbd al-Malik had previously sought her hand for his son al-Walīd, but Saʿīd refused. When the pledge of allegiance to al-Walīd reached Madinah during ʿAbd al-Malik’s reign, his governor over the city, Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl, had Saʿīd beaten, paraded around the city, and threatened with the sword, yet he still declined to give the pledge.
When the people trembled for him, a woman saw him and said, “What is this disgrace, O Saʿīd?” He replied, “From disgrace we have fled to what you now see; had we complied, we would have fallen into the disgrace of this world and the next.”
He used to carry a sheepskin on his back.
He possessed some wealth with which he traded and would say, “O Allah, You know that I have not kept it out of miserliness, greed, love of this world, or desire for its pleasures; rather, I wish to shield my face from the sons of Marwān until I meet You and You judge between me and them, and from it I…"