Yaḥyā ibn al-Naḍr

He said: The teacher Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Ḥafṣ said: Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Naḍr said: Abū Ḥanīfa completed the Qurʾan sixty times in Ramadan, once during the day and once during the night.

Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Ḥafṣ said: Yaḥyā ibn al-Naḍr said: “They did not doubt that he had been given poison and died.” Another version says he was forced to drink a draught of sawīq and died from it. It is also related that the Commander of the Faithful appointed him judge of al-Ruṣāfa, but he refused. He was flogged, became ill and died six days later.

Another version says that Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh rose in Basra claiming the caliphate. Al-Manṣūr heard that al-Aʿmash and Abū Ḥanīfa had written to him. He forged two letters in Ibrāhīm's name, addressed to them. When a letter was brought to Abū Ḥanīfa, he took it and kissed it. Abū Jaʿfar consequently suspected him and gave him poison. His face turned green and he died. Another version says Abū Jaʿfar imprisoned him and gave him ten lashes every day, and he died in prison.

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿUmāra washed him. His funeral bier was carried from prison, and a great crowd gathered and prayed over him at the gate of al-Khayzurān. Prayers were offered over him after burial for more than ten days. His son Ḥammād was the last to pray over him.

They differed over his age. Muqātil al-Samarqandī said: “Abū Ḥanīfa died in the year 150, aged seventy-two.” Abū Nuʿaym said the same. Others said he was seventy.

Yaḥyā ibn al-Naḍr said: When Abū Ḥanīfa spoke to a man, he spoke gently and with little anger, saying: “Be dignified! Be dignified!” He was among the best in character, gentlest, most generous with what he owned, longest in nightly prayer and most ascetic toward the world.

The Commander of the Faithful ordered eighty dinars and an enslaved woman to be given to him, but he refused. The Commander said: “Do not tell people that you refused them.” Abū Ḥanīfa never took a dirham or dinar from a ruler. He sat at the beginning and end of the day in a mosque beside his house, and at night with his companions to teach jurisprudence. He showed the Arabs great respect.