to accept the governorship of Medina; al-Rashid pressed the post upon him, and he accepted it on certain equitable conditions that he himself set, which the caliph approved. Al-Rashid then added to his charge the deputyship of Yemen, and he proved to be one of the most just of governors. When he assumed office he was about seventy years old.

ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-ʿUmari (1) met Abu Tuwalah and transmitted reports from his father and from Ibrahim ibn Saʿd. He was a devoted worshipper and an ascetic. Once he delivered to al-Rashid a long and eloquent admonition.

While the caliph was standing on al-Safa he said to him, “Do you see the people thronging around it”—meaning the Kaʿbah—“from every side?” The caliph replied, “They are many.” He said, “Each one of them will be questioned on the Day of Resurrection about his own self, whereas you will be questioned about all of them.” Al-Rashid thereupon wept profusely, and they kept bringing him cloth after cloth with which to dry his tears.

He then said to him, “O Harun, when a man squanders his own property he may be placed under guardianship; how much more so one who squanders the property of all the Muslims?” He left him while the caliph was still weeping. He had other laudable encounters with him besides this one. He died at the age of sixty-six.

Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Maʿdan (2), Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Isbahani, met members of the generation of the Followers, after which he devoted himself to worship and asceticism. ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubarak used to call him “the bridegroom of the ascetics.”

Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Qattan said, “I have never seen anyone better than he; it was as though he had actually beheld the unseen.” Ibn Mahdi said, “I have never seen his like.” He would not buy his bread from the same baker, nor his greens from the same greengrocer; he purchased only from sellers who did not know him, saying, “I fear they might show me favor, and I would become someone who lives off his religion.” He never lay down on his side to sleep, whether in summer or in winter. He died before reaching the age of forty. (May Allah have mercy on him.)

[Then the year 185 AH began.]

In that year the people of Tabaristan killed their governor Mihrwayh al-Razi, so al-Rashid appointed in his place ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿid al-Harashi.

In the same year ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Anbari killed Aban ibn Qahtabah, the Kharijite, at Marj al-Qalaʿah (3).