Yaḥyā ibn ʿAnbasa

Abū Ḥāmid Aḥmad ibn ʿAbdān al-Balkhī related to us: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥasan ibn Ḥumrān ibn Muʿāwiya related to us: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAnbasa related to us: I heard Ghawrak al-Saʿdī al-Kūfī say: I presented gifts to Abū Ḥanīfa, and he repaid me with many times their value. I said, ‘Had I known you would do this, I would not have done what I did.’ He said, ‘Do not say that. The merit belongs to the one who precedes and initiates. Have you not heard what al-Haytham related to me, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, tracing it to the Prophet—God bless him and his family and grant him peace—that he said: “Whoever does you a kindness, repay him. If you cannot find anything with which to repay him, praise him”?’ I said to him, ‘This report is dearer to me than everything I own.’