and his standing as an imam, and they speak of his tireless worship by night and day, his unfailing performance of the pilgrimage, and his continual striving (1).

Another scholar said, “He used to fast one day and break the fast the next; he had four wives and two concubines, was very virile, handsome, and bright-complexioned. They added that he divided his nights among the slave-girls just as he did among the free wives.”

Al-Dāraqutnī said, “Abū Bakr ibn al-Ḥaddād was prolific in ḥadith, yet he transmitted from no one but al-Nasāʾī. He declared, ‘I am content to take him as my proof before Allah—exalted is He.’ ”

Ibn Yūnus remarked, “He was an imam in ḥadith—trustworthy, firmly grounded, and a memorizer—and he left Egypt in 302 AH.”

Ibn ʿAdī said, “I heard Manṣūr the jurist and Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Salamah al-Ṭaḥāwī say, ‘Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī is one of the imams of the Muslims.’ More than one leading scholar praised him in the same vein, testifying to his merit, his precedence in this field, and his prodigious memory and expertise.”

He also served as judge in Homs. I heard this from our shaykh, the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī—may Allah have mercy on him—who quoted al-Ṭabarānī in the Muʿjam al-Awsat, where he said, “Aḥmad ibn Shuʿayb the judge in Homs narrated to us….” They further related that he had four wives, was extremely handsome—his face like a lamp—and that each day he would eat a rooster and drink with it an infusion of lawful raisins.

It has been said that he was accused of a measure of Shiʿite inclination. They recount that he entered Damascus, where the people asked him to narrate something of Muʿāwiyah’s virtues. He replied, “Is it not enough for Muʿāwiyah to be matched head-for-head without our having to relate special virtues for him?” At this they began stabbing at his testicles (2) until he was expelled from the congregational mosque. He left them, set out for Mecca, and died there that same year; his grave is in Mecca. Al-Ḥākim transmitted this from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Iṣbahānī on the authority of his shaykhs.

Al-Dāraqutnī also said, “He was the most learned of Egypt’s shaykhs in his time, the most knowledgeable of what is sound and weak among the reports, and the most versed in the transmitters. When he reached that rank, they envied him, so he departed for al-Ramla. There he was asked about Muʿāwiyah’s virtues and remained silent, whereupon they beat him in the mosque. He said, ‘Carry me to Mecca,’ and they took him out while he was ailing. He died in Mecca, slain as a martyr.”

Al-Ḥākim concluded, “Along with all the virtues Allah granted al-Nasāʾī, He also granted him martyrdom at the end of his life; he died in Mecca in 303 AH.”