Gifts of Knowledge

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥussain ibn ʿAbdullah al-Khiraqī said, “I spent the night along with Aḥmad ibn Hanbal. I never saw him sleep, he just cried until the morning. So I said, ‘Abū ʿAbdullah, you cried a lot this night, what happened?’ He said, ‘I remembered how al-Muʿtaṣim beat me and I came across this āyah in the dars, ‘And the retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it, but whoever pardons and makes reconciliation—his reward is [due] from Allāh,’ [42:40] so I prostrated and in the sajdah I forgave him for beating me.’”
Manāqib al-Imām Aḥmad, p. 467.

Tagged: Ahmad ibn Hanbal