[ʿAbd Allāh:] My father could bear solitude better than anyone. Bishr,288 great as he was, couldn’t stand to be alone: he would go out visiting an hour here, an hour there. 54.1

[ʿAbd Allāh:] The only places anyone saw my father were in the mosque, at a funeral, or at the home of someone taken ill. He hated walking through the markets. 54.2

[ʿAbd Allāh:] My father could bear solitude better than anyone. The only places anyone saw him were in the mosque, at a funeral, or at the home of someone taken ill.

He hated walking through the markets. 54.3

[Fatḥ ibn Nūḥ:] I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal say, “I wish for something I’ll never have: a place with no one in it at all.” 54.4

[Al-Marrūdhī:] Aḥmad said to me, “I don’t care if I never saw anyone and no one saw me—though I would miss ʿAbd al-Wahhāb.”289 54.5

[Al-Maymūnī:] Ibn Ḥanbal said, “I’ve found that being alone is easier for me.” 54.6

[Al-Iṣfahānī:] I was once at Aḥmad’s door waiting to be given permission to go in.

At one point his son ʿAbd Allāh appeared. A man who was there said to him, “Tell your father that So-and-So died and we’re carrying him to the cemetery this afternoon.” 54.7

ʿAbd Allāh went in, came out again, and said to the man, “I told him. He asked for God’s mercy on the deceased and prayed for him. But he doesn’t like to go out when people know he’s coming because he’ll draw a crowd.” [Al-Musayyabī:] I once said to Aḥmad, “I’d like to visit you and pay my respects, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t want me to.”290 54.8

“I don’t like that sort of thing,” he said.

[Al-Marrūdhī:] I once suggested to Aḥmad that he meet up with ʿAbd al- Wahhāb. 54.9

“Didn’t some of the pious avoid meetings?” he said. Then he added, “He would make an effort to be pleasant with me and I with him. No, solitude is a better teacher.

The one with true understanding fears God.”291

I once heard Aḥmad say, “I want to go down to Mecca and throw myself into one of those ravines where no one will ever find me.”