The Life Of Ibn Hanbal by Ibn Al-Jawzi

[Al-Dūrī:] When Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal wrote me a letter of introduction to some Hadith transmitters in Basra, he called me simply “someone seeking Hadith.” 49.1

[Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm:] I heard that when Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was visited by a group of his fellow Hadith-men, he bought them something to eat using only the money he had on hand.264 I also heard that when al-Mutawakkil brought him to Samarra he refused to touch anything prepared at the palace, and made a kaylajah—a fourth of barley meal265—last for fifteen days while he waited for money to reach him from Baghdad. 49.2

[Isḥāq ibn Mūsā l-Anṣārī:] Al-Maʾmūn gave me some money and ordered me to distribute it to the Hadith-men, “since some of them are poor.” 49.3

Every one of them accepted some money—except for Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who refused to touch it.

[Fūrān:] We were at Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s two nights before he died. With us was a young black slave whom his uncle Abū Yūsuf had bought with the money given him by al-Mutawakkil. The slave wanted to fan Aḥmad but he told him not to. 49.4

[ʿAbd Allāh:] When I was ill, my father came to check on me. 49.5

“Dad,” I said, “we still have some of the money al-Mutawakkil gave us. What if I used it to make the pilgrimage?” “You should,” he said.

“But if you don’t mind spending it,” I asked, “why don’t you take it?” “I don’t consider it forbidden, son,” he answered. “But I’d rather abstain.” [Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh:] Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal told me, “Every year I survey the house I live in and pay the alms-tax on it, following what ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said about the Black Land in Iraq.”266 49.6

[Muḥammad ibn Yūnus:] Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Shādhakūnī once told me, “Have you seen ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī trying to emulate Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal? That’ll be the day! They’re like chalk and cheese.267 Once in Mecca I saw firsthand how scrupulous Aḥmad is. He had pawned a copper pail to a fruit-and-nut vendor so he could buy something to eat. When he had enough money to redeem the pail, he went to the vendor, who held out two of them and said, ‘Take whichever one is yours.’ 49.7

“‘I can’t tell,’ said Aḥmad. ‘Keep it, and keep the money.’ “So he left his pail.

“‘One was his, I swear,’ said the vendor. ‘I was just testing him!’” [Al-Ṭūsī:] Whenever he saw a Christian, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal would close his eyes.

Asked why, he said, “I can’t look at anyone who lies about God.” 49.8

[ʿAbd Allāh:] Even with all the Hadith my father knew, there were fewer than a hundred reports I ever saw him recite without using a book. 49.9

[Al-Madīnī:] Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal has a better memory than any of us, but I’ve heard that he only recites Hadith out of books—an example all of us should follow. 49.10

[Ibrāhīm ibn Jābir al-Marwazī:] We used to sit with Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and go over Hadith reports until we knew them well and could recite them correctly.

Whenever we wanted to write something down, he would say, “The book remembers it better than we do.” Then he would jump up to get the book. 49.11

[Al-Marrūdhī:] I once heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal say, “I had to borrow sixty-five dirhams to spend on this entranceway, but all I get on the building is a quarter of the rent.” 49.12

“Why didn’t you let ʿAbd Allāh pay for it?” I said.

“I don’t want him to taint my money.”268

[Al-Tustari:] I heard that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal once went three days without eating and sent a message to a friend asking to borrow some flour. Realizing that he was starving, his family quickly baked something for him. When they put the dish in front of him, he asked how they had managed to bake so fast. 49.13

“The oven in Ṣāliḥ’s house was already warm,” they told him.

“Take this away!” he said, and refused to touch it. Then he ordered them to seal up the door that joined his house to Ṣāliḥ’s.269

[Al-Marrūdhī:] During Aḥmad’s final illness, I heard him say to his wife, “Who told you to bake anything there?”—meaning at his son Ṣāliḥ’s house. She had baked something there once before and he had refused to touch it, saying, “Who’s going to eat that?” 49.14

[Al-Marrūdhī:] I was once with Aḥmad somewhere and he recited, «You lived in the dwellings of those who wronged themselves,»270 adding, “We certainly have,” or “That’s where we are.” 49.15

[Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm:] Aḥmad once sent me with three or four coins to buy spices for the cooking pot. Then gave me another coin and said, “Buy spices with this one too, but don’t mix them with the others.” 49.16

But the spices did get mixed up. When I brought them back and told him, he said, “Return what you bought and get the money back.” I did, and he tossed it in with the money he paid the servant girl, since he couldn’t sort out which coins were tainted.

[Ibn Hāniʾ:] Aḥmad once gave me a coin and said, “Take this and buy me some beans in water.” 49.17

Ḥusn, his son’s mother, gave me another coin and said, “Take this and buy some beans for me too.” Aḥmad added, “And buy some beans in oil for the boys.” I ended up with one or two ḥabbahs in change from the coin I had spent on the beans in oil, so I told the bean vendor to give me some more oil. I took the oil and poured it over the beans I had bought for Aḥmad. When I brought the food back and put it in front of him, he noticed the trace of oil and asked, “What’s this?” I said, “There was a ḥabbah left over from the boys’ coin so I spent it on oil for you.” “Take it away, you idiot,” he said. “Who told you to do that? When are you going to learn?” He didn’t eat any of it.

[Al-Simsār:] I heard Aḥmad say to Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Naysābūrī, “Go to Umm ʿAlī”—meaning his daughter—“and take whatever she gives you.” 49.18

Isḥāq went in and came back out carrying a chicken. Then he and I left together.

“What did Umm ʿAlī say?” I asked him.

“She said her father needs a cupping but has no money, and asked her to give me the chicken and have me sell it.” When we got the chicken to market, Isḥāq was offered a dirham and two dāniqs for it, but changed his mind about the sale and took it back.

At the bridge, we ran across Aḥmad’s son ʿAbd Allāh, who was sitting at Ibn Bukhtān’s shop. He called Isḥāq over and asked, “Why are carrying a chicken? And whose is it?” I told him that Umm ʿAlī had given it to us to sell.

“How much did you get for it?” “We were offered a dirham and two dāniqs.” “Give it to me for one and a half.” Isḥāq took the money and gave him the chicken. When we got back, Umm ʿAlī asked him how much he’d gotten.

“One and a half dirhams.” “That’s all?” “The offer I got at the market was only a dirham and two dāniqs.” Then Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal asked, “Who bought it?” “Your son ʿAbd Allāh.” When he heard that, Aḥmad grabbed the money back from Umm ʿAlī. “Go,” he shouted at me, “and return it!” Isḥāq went running back to ʿAbd Allāh.

“Take your money back!” he said. “Your father shouted at me over it.” “Why did you tell him it was me?” asked ʿAbd Allāh, but took the money back.

Isḥāq continued the story:

[Isḥāq:] Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal told me to go back to the market and keep his son out of it. So I sold the chicken to someone I didn’t know for a dirham and a third, and then went back to Aḥmad.

“You’d better not have sold it to ʿAbd Allāh,” he said.

“No,” I replied. “I sold it to a stranger.” [Al-Simsār:] ʿAbd Allāh’s mother had a house next to ours in the lane. The house had been part of Aḥmad’s inheritance, and so he collected a dirham in rent on it. At one point she needed money and ʿAbd Allāh gave it to her. After that, Aḥmad stopped taking the dirham from her, saying that it was now tainted.271 49.19

[Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī:] Ṣāliḥ reported that when his father got sick, ʿAbd al- Raḥmān the healer advised him to roast a gourd and drink the juice. 49.20

“He told me not to cook it in my house or in ʿAbd Allāh’s,” said Ṣāliḥ.

I heard Abū Bakr al-Marrūdhī say that he took it and cooked it and brought it back to him.

[Ibn ʿAyyāsh:] Aḥmad sent me to buy him a single coin’s worth of clarified butter.

I brought it to him wrapped in a green leaf.272 He took the butter, gave me back the leaf, and said, “Return it.” 49.21

[Al-Ṣaḥnāʾī:] Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal gave me a single coin to buy some beans on bread in broth. I came back with a lot of beans and he asked why. 49.22

“There were two bean vendors trying to undersell each other.” “Take it back,” he said. “Give the vendor the food back and let him keep the money.” I did as he asked.

[Al-Mukharrimī:] Rawḥ ibn ʿUbādah came to stay with us and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal came to see him. Aḥmad slept right here. He kept some bread for himself in his sleeve and drank water from the watercourse, and he waited outside for Rawḥ to appear.

Then Yaḥyā ibn Aktham showed up with an entourage. He sat in front of Aḥmad and started asking him questions. Aḥmad just kept looking down. When Yaḥyā realized he wasn’t going to respond, he got up and left.273 49.23

[Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad:] Someone from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s house came to tell him that his son was ill and wanted butter. Aḥmad gave a coin to one of the men present and told him to buy some butter. The man brought back some butter wrapped in leaves of chard. As soon as he saw them, Aḥmad asked, “Where did those leaves come from?” 49.24

“From the grocer.” “Did you ask his permission to take them?” “No.” “Take it all back!” [Ṣāliḥ:] When I had a baby, one of my friends gave me a gift. Months later, the same friend decided to go to Basra. He asked me whether my father would write a letter of introduction to the elders there. When I asked my father he said, “I would write for him except that he gave you a gift.” 49.25

[ʿAbd Allāh:] There was once an old man here who told us, “I noticed that Aḥmad was suffering from scabies, so I brought him some medicine and told him to put it on the rash. He took it but then gave it back. I asked him why, and he said, ‘You study Hadith with me.’”274 49.26

[Al-Harawī:] We were at Hushaym’s door when someone showed up with a letter of introduction. When they opened the door to let him in, we went in too, except for Aḥmad, who stayed back. He was a young man at the time—not even twenty. 49.27

“Aḥmad, come on in!” we said.

“No one gave me permission,” he replied.

[Al-Marrūdhī:] Aḥmad had some repairs done on the roof of the house he rented out to the weavers. The repairs were done in such a way that the drainpipe emptied into the street. The next morning he said, “Call the carpenter and tell him to turn the pipe so it drains to the house.” 49.28

I called the carpenter and he moved the pipe.275

[Al-Ḥarbī:] I attended Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal’s Hadith sessions for two years.

Whenever he came out to recite Hadith, he would bring out a reed pen and an inkpot covered in red leather. If he found an error or an omission in his transcript, he would correct it using his own pen and ink; he was too scrupulous to take any of ours. We would ask if he knew certain reports by heart, and he’d say, “No, I need the transcript.” 49.29

[Al-Ḥarbī:] Whenever Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal—God have mercy on him—came out to teach us, he always had a reed pen and a leather-covered inkpot. He was too scrupulous to take any of our ink to correct an S or any such thing.276 49.30

[Ibn Shabīb:] I once asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal about Muḥammad ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Naysābūrī, and he said to me, “Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā is a fine man.” 49.31

[The author:] I say: Here Aḥmad indirectly condemned Muḥammad ibn Muʿawiyah, a known liar, by praising someone else. In another report he condemns him, but here and elsewhere he avoids doing so.

[ʿAbd Allāh:] I heard my father say to Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, “People tell me you say, ‘I heard Ismāʿīl, son of ʿUlayyah, report.’” 49.32

“Yes, I do say that.” “Well, don’t. Say ‘Ismāʿīl, son of Ibrāhīm,’ instead. I’ve heard that he doesn’t like being called after his mother.” Yaḥyā accepted this instruction with good grace.

[The author:] A number of people are commonly known by their mothers’ names.

These include Bilāl son of Ḥamāmah, Muʿādh son of ʿAfrāʾ, Bashīr son of al- Khaṣāṣiyah, Ibn Buḥaynah, Yaʿlā son of Munyah, and many others, all mentioned in my book Pollen for the Mind. In any event, being scrupulous dictates that one avoid referring to people in a way they dislike.

[Al-Ruhāwī:] I once met Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in Baghdad and he asked me, “Whatever happened to that man al-Jawharī you have there in Ḥarrān? He was learned.” 49.33

I replied that I knew of no one by that name teaching Hadith in Ḥarrān.

“You know who I mean: he was an associate of Abū Maʿbad Ḥafṣ ibn Ghaylān.” “I don’t know him.” “Come on!” said Aḥmad. “He has a number of sons.” “Do you mean ‘the Owl’?” “Yes!” he said. “Learn from him: he’s reliable.” [The author:] The man’s name was Sulaymān ibn Abī Dāwūd and he was called “the Owl.” Out of scrupulosity, our exemplar Aḥmad avoided using his nickname.

[Al-Sijistānī:] I once asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal about the validity of a declaration of divorce pronounced by a drunken man. He said, “Ask someone else.”277 49.34

[Al-Ḥarbī:] On his deathbed Aḥmad asked that we make expiation for him for one vow he had made, saying “I think I broke it.”278 49.35

[Al-Marrūdhī:] More times than I can count, I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal about something and he said, “I don’t know.” 49.36

[Al-Yamāmī:] I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal say, “Many times I’ve waited three years before knowing what to think about a problem of law.” 49.37

[Al-Athram:] I often heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, when someone asked him a question, say that he didn’t know. He would say this even when he was aware of what had been said about it. When asked to give the answer he preferred, he would note that there was a difference of opinion. What he meant when he said “I don’t know” was that he didn’t know which view to choose. I often heard him say, “I don’t know,” and then start citing opinions. 49.38

[Al-Marrūdhī:] When I was with Aḥmad in Ītākh’s palace in Samarra, I pointed out something that had been put up on the wall.279 He told me not to look at it. 49.39

“But I already did,” I said.

“Well, don’t.”