Anecdote: Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Malik was once caliph. One day he reflected and said, “I have luxuriated in this world for a long time—what, then, will my state be in the Hereafter?” He went to Abū Ḥāzim—the foremost scholar and ascetic of his day—and said, “Send me a portion of the food with which you break your fast.” Abū Ḥāzim sent him a small amount of roasted bran, saying, “This is my supper.” When Sulayman saw it he, too, chose—on the third night—to break his fast with that very roasted bran. It is said that on that night he approached his wife, who conceived ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz came ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, a man unrivalled in his age for justice, fairness, asceticism, and beneficence, walking in the footsteps of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him. People say this was a blessing flowing from Sulayman’s sincere intention, his fasting, and his eating of that humble food.
Anecdote: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was asked, “What prompted your repentance?” He replied, “One day I was beating a servant when he said to me, ‘Remember the night whose dawn will be the Day of Resurrection.’ Those words pierced my heart.”
Another anecdote: A notable once saw Hārūn al-Rashīd on the plain of ʿArafāt, barefoot, bare-headed, standing on the blistering ground with his hands raised, saying, “My Lord, You are You and I am I; my habit every day is to return to disobeying You, and Your habit is to return to me with mercy.” One of the dignitaries remarked, “Look at the supplication of the sovereign of the earth before the Sovereign of the heavens.”
Another anecdote: One day ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz asked Abū Ḥāzim for counsel. Abū Ḥāzim said, “When you go to sleep, lay death beneath your head. Whatever you would like death to find you persisting in, cling to it; and whatever you would hate death to find you upon, avoid it—for death may be nearer to you than you think.”
Thus the holder of authority should keep this story before his eyes and accept the admonitions offered to others: whenever he meets a scholar he should ask for advice. Likewise, scholars must admonish rulers with counsel of this kind, neither deceiving them nor withholding from them a single word of truth; for whoever deceives them shares in their guilt. God Most High knows best.