Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Balkhī

Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Tirmidhī related to us. He said: Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Balkhī related to us. He said: Abū Isḥāq al-Ṭālaqānī related to us. He said: al-Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid said: A legal question arose for me in Marw, and I found no one who knew it. I went to Sufyān al-Thawrī and asked him [about it]. He lowered his head for a while, then said: ‘Ḥusayn, I do not know it.’ I said: ‘You say you do not know it, although you are an imam?’ He said: ‘I say what Ibn ʿUmar said when asked about something: “I do not know.”’ I went to Abū Ḥanīfa and asked him. He gave me an opinion. I asked him for the evidence, and he supplied it. I went to Sufyān and said: ‘I asked Abū Ḥanīfa; he gave me an opinion, and when I asked for the evidence he supplied it.’ He said: ‘What did he say?’ I said: ‘He said such-and-such.’ Sufyān considered it for a while, then said: ‘Ḥusayn, it is as Abū Ḥanīfa said.’ I said: ‘Yesterday you said you did not know it, and today you say it is as Abū Ḥanīfa said?!’ He was silent for a while, then said: ‘Ḥusayn! There are many like us in Abū Ḥanīfa’s drawstring.’

The final figurative reference to his drawstring is retained rather than replaced with an unstated comparison.

Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Tirmidhī related to us. He said: Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Balkhī related to us, from Shaddād ibn Ḥakīm, who said: Misʿar ibn Kidām said: I watched Abū Ḥanīfa, may God have mercy on him, in the Sacred Mosque. After the night prayer, he stood praying and kept the whole night alive. I thought: ‘A man may be energetic for one night.’ I watched him the second night, and he did the same, standing through the night. I watched him a third night, and he stood until morning. I said: ‘He is a man devoted to worship.’