As a typical man of piety our hero was very kind to all his acquaintances, whom he visited when ill and inquired about when absent. A very interesting case is reported in the encounter between our hero and his drunkard neighbour, who would get drunk and keep singing aloud all night long causing so much annoyance to Abu Hanifah. Once the police caught the man (the noisy neighbour) and took him to prison. Abu Hanifah noticed that night that the neighbourhood was quiet. So he inquired about his noisy neighbour. Upon knowing of his neighbour's imprisonment, he rushed to the governor of the city interceding for his neighbour who was immediately released. Not only that, Abu Hanifah gave the man some money to compensate for the earnings he lost due to imprisonment. The drunkard was so impressed with this kind attitude and treatment that he decided to repent and devote his time to learning the message of Islam in the mosque.
Abu Hanifah's fear of falling into fault made him refuse all the offers made by governors and the Caliph to appoint him in public offices, including the post of a judge. For that reason Caliph Abu Ja'far al-Mansur ordered that Abu Hanifah be put in jail where he died in the year 150H.
But even if our hero died in prison, his name is still very much alive in the memory of Islamic history and millions of the followers of his school of thought and others all over the world.
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