In this same year there also passed away:
• al-Ḥasan ibn Qaḥṭabah (1), one of the leading Abbasid commanders;
• Ḥamzah ibn Mālik, who had governed Khurasan in the days of al-Rashīd;
• Khalf ibn Khalīfah, the teacher of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah, who died at the age of one hundred;
• ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak (2), Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Marwazī.
His father was a Turk, the client of a merchant from Banū Ḥanẓalah residing in Hamadhān, and whenever Ibn al-Mubārak visited that city he would show kindness to the children of his father’s patron. His mother was from Khwārazm. He was born in 118 AH.
He studied under Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, al-Aʿmash, Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, and many other eminent Tābiʿīn, and crowds of people narrated hadith from him. He was known for his prodigious memory, mastery of jurisprudence and Arabic, asceticism, generosity, courage, and poetry. He produced fine compilations and composed excellent verse filled with abundant wisdom.
Ibn al-Mubārak spent much of his life alternating between military expeditions and pilgrimage. He maintained a trading capital of about four hundred thousand, circulating it through commerce in the various lands; wherever he met a scholar he would treat him with generosity. His yearly profit exceeded one hundred thousand, all of which he spent on people devoted to worship, asceticism, and learning—and at times he would even draw on his principal.
Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said, “I examined his affair alongside that of the Companions, and found that they excel him only by their companionship of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.”
Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh declared, “There is no one on the face of the earth like him. I know of no trait of goodness except that Allah placed it within Ibn al-Mubārak. My companions told me that they traveled with him from Egypt to Mecca, and he fed them khabīṣ while he himself remained continuously fasting.”
On one occasion he arrived at al-Raqqah, where Hārūn al-Rashīd was staying. As soon as he entered the city the populace turned out to greet him, crowding tightly around him. A concubine of al-Rashīd looked down from a palace and asked, “What is the matter with the people?” They answered, “A man from the scholars of Khurasan has arrived.”