He had committed the Qur’an to heart and studied the Shafi‘i school under Abū Saʿīd al-Isṭakhri. He heard hadith from Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Salman al-Najjād, and al-Azjī and al-Ṣaymarī narrated from him. He was reliable and upright, a byword for striving against the ego, for pure, unalloyed sincerity (1), for chastity and asceticism, for enjoining right and forbidding wrong, and for the effectiveness of his admonitions upon hearts.
One day a man brought him one hundred dinars. He said, “I have no need of them.” The man replied, “Take them and distribute them among your companions here.” He said, “Set them on the ground,” so they were placed there (2). He then said to the gathering, “Let each of you take what he needs from them” (3). They came forward, each taking only what sufficed him, until the money was gone. Afterward his own son came and complained to him (4) of their want; he said, “Go to the grocer and take, on my account, a quarter-ratl of dates.”
On another occasion a man saw him buy a chicken and some sweets and, surprised, followed him. The shaykh entered a house where there were orphans and widows and handed the food to them.
He used to pound suʿd (5) for the perfumers for a wage and lived on that income. When death approached he kept saying, “My Master, it was for this very hour that I had kept You in reserve” (6).
He died on Tuesday, with seven days remaining of Dhu al-Ḥijjah of this year. The funeral prayer was performed for him in the Manṣūr Mosque, and he was buried in the cemetery of Imām Aḥmad.
Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn Wāṣil, ruler of Sīrāf, Basra, and other districts, had first served in al-Karkh. A prediction (7) had been made that he would one day rule, so his companions mocked him: one would say, “When you rule, employ me,” another, “Grant me a robe of honor,” and another, “Punish me.” Destiny carried him along until he did indeed rule Sīrāf and then Basra. He seized the marshlands (al-Baṭīḥah) from Muhadhdhab al-Dawlah and drove him out a fugitive, so hard-pressed that at one point he had to ride a cow. Ibn Wāṣil took possession of all the wealth and stores there, marched on Ahwāz, and defeated Bahāʾ al-Dawlah; later Bahāʾ al-Dawlah gained the upper hand, killed him in Shaʿbān of this same year, and had his head paraded through the provinces. Allah Most High knows best what is correct.