He retorted, “Then we shall cut off your allowance.” I replied, “And in the heaven is your provision and that which you are promised” (Q 51:22).

It is said that his monthly stipend was one thousand dirhams, yet he abandoned it for the sake of Allah. He passed away in 219 AH.

50 – ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAlī, the shaykh of al-Bukhārī (d. 221 AH).

179 – The governor in question is Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muṣʿab al-Khuzāʿī, a cousin of Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn. He ruled Baghdad for more than twenty years and died at the end of 235 AH, as al-Shadharāt records.

180 – I remark: I have not yet identified Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bakr al-Simsār, but he is corroborated, as will be shown. Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyā ibn ʿĪsā is al-Marwazī, Abū Zakariyyā; he is truthful and reliable, as Ibn Abī Ḥātim states (4/2/146).

Al-Khaṭīb also produced this report in the biography of ʿAffān in his History (12/270–271) through the route of Ḥanbal ibn Isḥāq from ʿAffān, though without the words, “I met Shuʿbah … [that the Quran is] uncreated.” Its chain is strong.

206 – We have transmitted from ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAlī—ʿĀṣim al-Wāsiṭī—who said:
“I debated Jahm, and from his speech it became clear that he does not believe there is a Lord in the heaven.”

I say: ʿĀṣim was a memoriser, one of the vessels of knowledge, and truthful. He narrated from Shuʿbah, Ibn Abī Dhʿīb, and many others. Al-Khaṭīb relates in his biography that the caliph al-Muʿtaṣim sent someone to estimate the size of ʿĀṣim’s gathering in the courtyard of the Rusāfa mosque. ʿĀṣim would sit on the roof of the courtyard while the masses filled the courtyard and its surroundings. On one occasion the assembly was so large that he had to repeat “al-Layth ibn Saʿd narrated to us” fourteen times, yet the people still could not hear him because of their numbers. The scribe Hārūn would climb a palm tree to relay the dictation. When they counted, the gathering numbered one hundred and twenty thousand. Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn said, “ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAlī is the leader of the Muslims.”

I add: He died in the same year as al-Qaʿnabi.