He was a devout, self-denying worshipper who lived on nothing but plain broad beans. When he passed away, the markets of Baghdad were closed (1), crowds gathered to perform the funeral prayer over him, and he was then carried by boat (2) to Basra, where he was laid to rest. This took place in the month of Rajab of the present year (3).

Among those who died this same year were:

• Aḥmad ibn Mulāʿib (4). He narrated ḥadith from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and others. He was reliable, pious, learned, and virtuous, and through him a great amount of knowledge spread.

• Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Sukkārī, the grammarian and linguist, author of several works (5).

• Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Hāniʾ, Abū Yaʿqūb al-Nabsabūrī (6), one of Imām Aḥmad’s closest companions; it was in his house that the Imām concealed himself during the inquisition.

• ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Tamīmī, the perfumer from Mosul. Ibn al-Athīr said (7): “He transmitted many ḥadith and was deemed trustworthy by the judges.”

• Yaḥyā ibn Abī Ṭālib (8).

• Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (9), the author of the Sunan: he is Sulaymān ibn al-Ashʿath ibn Isḥāq ibn Bashīr ibn Shaddād ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿImrān, Abu Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, one of the great imams who travelled extensively through lands and provinces. He collected, compiled, classified, authored, and heard an immense body of material from the scholars of Syria, Egypt, the Jazīrah, Iraq, Khurasan, and elsewhere.

His renowned Sunan—circulated among the scholars—is the very collection of which Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī said: “For a mujtahid, it suffices to be acquainted with it among the prophetic ḥadith.”