ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd relates:

I heard him (Abū Yūsuf) say: “My father died while I was still a boy, so my mother placed me with a fuller. Whenever I passed by the study-circle of Abū Ḥanīfah I would sit there, and my mother would follow after me, take me by the hand, and drag me back to the fuller. I kept slipping away from her and returning to Abū Ḥanīfah.

“When this went on for some time, my mother complained to Abū Ḥanīfah: ‘This child is an orphan; he has nothing except what I feed him from the earnings of my spindle, and you have spoiled him for me.’

“He said to her, ‘Be quiet, foolish woman! The boy is learning sacred knowledge, and a day will come when he will eat falūdhaj drizzled with pistachio oil, served in turquoise dishes.’

“She retorted, ‘You are an old man who has lost his mind!’

“Later, when I was appointed judge—the first to appoint me was the Caliph al-Hādī. He was also the first to confer the title ‘Chief Judge,’ and people called me ‘Chief Judge of the World’ because I deputized judges in every province governed by the Caliph—one day I was with Hārūn al-Rashīd when a dish of falūdhaj in a turquoise bowl was brought in.

“He said to me, ‘Eat from this; it is not prepared for us all the time.’

“I asked, ‘What is it, Commander of the Faithful?’

“He replied, ‘This is falūdhaj.’

“I smiled, and he asked, ‘Why are you smiling?’

“I said, ‘Nothing, may Allah preserve the Commander of the Faithful.’

“He insisted, ‘You must tell me.’ So I told him the story.

“He remarked, ‘Knowledge benefits and elevates a person in this world and the Hereafter.’ Then he added, ‘May Allah have mercy on Abū Ḥanīfah; with the eye of his intellect he saw what the eye of his head could not see.’ ”

Abū Ḥanīfah used to say about Abū Yūsuf, “He is the most learned of my pupils.”

Al-Muzanī said, “Of all of them, Abū Yūsuf followed hadith most closely.”

Ibn al-Madīnī said, “He was truthful.”

Ibn Maʿīn said, “He was reliable.”

Abū Zurʿah said, “He was free of Jahmite leanings.”

Bashshār al-Khaffāf said, “I heard Abū Yūsuf say: ‘Whoever claims that the Quran is created—his speech is unlawful to listen to, it is obligatory to shun him, and it is impermissible to greet him or to return his greeting.’ ”

Among his sayings—worthy of being written in gold—is this statement:

“Whoever seeks wealth through alchemy becomes bankrupt; whoever pursues the rarities of hadith becomes a liar; and whoever seeks knowledge through speculative theology becomes a heretic.”

When he and Mālik debated in Madinah, in the presence of al-Rashīd, about the measure of the ṣāʿ and the zakāh on vegetables, Mālik argued on the basis of the inherited measures handed down from their forefathers, adding that no zakāh had ever been taken from vegetables in the time of the Rightly Guided Caliphs.

Abū Yūsuf replied, “Had my teacher seen what I have seen, he would have retracted just as I have retracted.” This was fairness on his part.

Scholars of every rank used to attend his court. Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, while still a young man, would sit among the people there; they would debate and discuss while Abū Yūsuf simultaneously rendered judgments and authored works. He said, “I was entrusted with this office, and I hope Allah will not question me about any injustice or bias—save for one day. A man came to me claiming that he owned a garden which was in the possession of the Commander of the Faithful. I went in to the Caliph and informed him,

and he said, ‘The garden is mine; it was purchased for me…’