Biography of Imam al-Shafii

The tenth volume.

1 - Imam ach-Chafii Muhammad ibn Idris ibn al-Abbas (khṭ, 4)

Muhammad ibn Idris ibn al-Abbas ibn Outhman ibn Chafi ibn as-Sa'ib ibn Oubayd ibn Abd Yazid ibn Hicham ibn al-Mouttalib ibn Abd Manaf ibn Qoussayy ibn Kilab ibn Mourra ibn Ka'b ibn Lou'ayy ibn Ghalib, the imam, the scholar of his era, the defender of hadith, the faqih

of the community, Abou Abdallah the Qurashi, then al-Mouttalibi, ach-Chafii, the Meccan, the Gazan by birth, kinsman of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and cousin of the latter: for al-Mouttalib is the brother of Hashim, father of Abd al-Mouttalib.

The birth of the imam coincided with Gaza, and his father Idris died a young man; Muhammad therefore grew up orphaned in the bosom of his mother: she feared for him neglect, and moved with him to the land of his maternal ancestors while he was two years old; he grew up in Mecca, and devoted himself to archery until he surpassed his contemporaries, hitting nine out of ten arrows; then he turned to the Arabic language and the Law, and excelled in that and advanced.

Then fiqh became beloved to him: he became the best of the people of his time.

He took knowledge in his town from: Mouslim ibn Khalid az-Zanji, mufti of Mecca, and Dawoud ibn Abd ar-Rahman the apothecary, and his uncle: Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Chafi, who is the cousin of al-Abbas, grandfather of ach-Chafii, and from Soufyan ibn Ouyayna, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr al-Moulayki, Sa'id ibn Salim, Foudayl ibn Iyad, and several.

And I have seen nothing from him from Nafi ibn Omar al-Joumahi and their like, though he was with him in Mecca.

His masters and his travels

And he travelled, while nineteen years old, having already given fatwas and matured for the imamate, to

Medina, and he took from Malik ibn Anas the "Mouvatta", presenting it from his memorization.

It is said: from his memorization, for the most part.

And he took from: Ibrahim ibn Abi Yahya, from whom he took most, and Abd al-Aziz ad-Darawardi, Attaf ibn Khalid, Ismail ibn Ja'far, Ibrahim ibn Sa'd, and their layer.

And in the Yaman he took from: Moutarrif ibn Mazin, Hicham ibn Youssouf the qadi, and a band.

And at Bagdad from: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, the faqih of Iraq: he kept close to him, and took from him a camel-load.

And from: Ismail ibn Oulayya, Abd al-Wahhab ath-Thaqafi, and people.

And he composed the works, committed knowledge to writing, answered the imams following the tradition, composed on the principles of fiqh and its branches, his fame spread afar, and students multiplied upon him.

Narrated from him: al-Houmaydi, Abou Oubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Soulayman ibn Dawoud al-Hashimi, Abou Ya'qoub Youssouf al-Bouwayti, Abou Thawr Ibrahim ibn Khalid al-Kalbi, Harmala ibn Yahya, Moussa ibn Abi al-Jaroud the Meccan, Abd al-Aziz the Meccan, author of the "Hayda", and Houssayn ibn Ali

al-Karabisi, Ibrahim ibn al-Moundhir al-Hizami, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad az-Za'farani, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Azraqi, Ahmad ibn Sa'id al-Hamdani, Ahmad ibn Abi Chourayh ar-Razi, Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Wazir the Egyptian, Ahmad ibn Abd ar-Rahman al-Wahbi, and his cousin: Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ach-Chafii, Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, Ishaq ibn Bouhloul, Abou Abd ar-Rahman Ahmad ibn Yahya ach-Chafii the theologian, al-Harith ibn Sourayj the transmitter, Hamid ibn Yahya al-Balkhi, Soulayman ibn Dawoud al-Mahri, Abd al-Aziz ibn Imran ibn Miqlas, Ali ibn Ma'bad ar-Raqqi, Ali ibn Salama al-Labaqi, Amr ibn Sawwad, Abou Hanifa Qahzam ibn Abdallah al-Aswani, Muhammad ibn Yahya the Adenite, Mas'oud ibn Sahl the Egyptian, Haroun ibn Sa'id al-Ayli, Ahmad ibn Sinan al-Qattan, Abou at-Tahir Ahmad ibn Amr ibn as-Sarh, Younous ibn Abd al-A'la, ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman al-Mouradi, ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman al-Jizi, Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hakam, and Bahr

ibn Nasr al-Khawlani, and people besides them.

Ad-Daruqutni moreover devoted a book in two parts to "those having narration from ach-Chafii", and composed on the elders concerning the merits of this imam, ancient and modern: and some people received bites from him: that only increased his loftiness and majesty; and it appeared to the fair ones that the speech of his contemporaries about him was passionate, and rare were those who emerged in imamate and answered whoever contradicted him but that they were requited (we seek refuge in Allah from passion): and these leaves are too narrow for the merits of this lord.

As for their grandfather as-Sa'ib al-Mouttalibi, he was among the great ones who were present at Badr along with the Jahiliya: he was taken captive that day, and he used to be likened to the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

And his mother is ach-Chifa bint Arqam ibn Nadla.

And Nadla: he is the brother of Abd al-Mouttalib, grandfather of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: it is said that after ransoming himself he embraced Islam.

And his son Chafi: he has a vision, and he is counted among the youngest of the Companions; and his son Outhman: a Taba'ite: I know of no great narrator from him.

And the maternal uncles of ach-Chafii were of the Azd.

From Ibn Abd al-Hakam, who said: when the mother of ach-Chafii carried him, she saw as if

the buyer came out of her womb until it fell upon Egypt, then there fell from it a splinter into every town: the interpreters explained it: that she would give birth to a scholar whose knowledge would be peculiar to the people of Egypt, then spread through the lands.

This narration is discontinuous.

And from Abou Abdallah ach-Chafii, in what Ibn Abi Hatim transmitted, from the nephew of Ibn Wahb, from him, who said:

"I was born in the Yaman (meaning the tribe: for his mother was an Azdite); my mother feared for me neglect, and said: join yourself to your people, that you may be like them: for I fear you be overcome over your lineage.

She equipped me for Mecca: I arrived there then aged ten years, and I went to a kinsman of mine, and began seeking knowledge: he would say: busy not yourself with this, and turn to what benefits you: delight came to me in knowledge."

Ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Amr ibn Sawwad: ach-Chafii said to me:

"I was born at Ascalon: when two years had passed over me, my mother carried me to Mecca."

And Ibn Abd al-Hakam said: ach-Chafii said to me:

"I was born at Gaza in the year fifty and one hundred, and I was carried to Mecca aged two years."

Al-Mouzani said: I never saw a face more beautiful than that of ach-Chafii, may Allah have mercy on him! and he would sometimes clasp his beard, and it would not exceed his grasp.

Ar-Rabi the muezzin said: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"I kept to archery until the physician said to me: I fear consumption befall you from much standing in the heat."

He said: "And I hit nine of the ten."

Al-Houmaydi said: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"I was an orphan in my mother's bosom: she had nothing to give me for the teacher, and the teacher had accepted from me that I look after the boys in his absence, and relieve him."

And from ach-Chafii, who said: I wrote on shoulder-blades and bones, and I went to the divan and asked for potsherds and wrote on them.

And Amr ibn Sawwad said: ach-Chafii said to me:

"My zeal was for archery and the seeking of knowledge: I attained of archery until I hit ten of ten, and he left me knowledge."

I said: "You are, by Allah, greater in knowledge than in archery."

Ahmad ibn Ibrahim at-Ta'i al-Aqta said: al-Mouzani narrated to us, who heard ach-Chafii say:

"I memorized the Quran while I was seven years old, and I memorized the Mouvatta while I was ten."

Al-Aqta: unknown.

In "the merits of ach-Chafii" of al-Abouri: I heard az-Zoubayr ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Hamadhani: Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Isa informed us: I heard ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman say:

Ach-Chafii was born the day Abou Hanifa died, may Allah the Most High have mercy on them both.

And from ach-Chafii, who said: I came to Malik while thirteen years old (so he said; but it appears he was twenty-three): I came to my cousin, governor of Medina, who spoke to Malik, and he said: seek one who reads for you.

I said: I myself read.

I read therefore upon him, and he would say to me at times of something past: repeat it.

I repeated it from memory, as if it marveled him; then I asked him a question: he answered me; then another, and he said: you love to be a qadi.

And it is narrated from ach-Chafii: "I dwelt in the bellies of the Arabs twenty years, taking their poems and their tongues, and I memorized the Quran: I do not know that a letter passed me but that I

knew the meaning in it and the intended, save two letters, one of which is: dassaha."

Its chain in that is unknown.

Ibn Abd al-Hakam said: I heard ach-Chafii say: I read the Quran upon Ismail ibn Qoustantin.

And he said: I read upon Chibl, and Chibl informed that he read upon Abdallah ibn Kathir, and he read upon Moujahid, and Moujahid informed that he read upon Ibn Abbas.

Ach-Chafii said: and Ismail used to say: "Quran" is a noun, not hamza-initial, and it is not taken from "qara'tu": had it been taken from "qara'tu", everything read would be a quran: rather it is the name of the Quran, like the Torah and the Gospel.

Al-Asamm and Ibn Abi Hatim: ar-Rabi narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"I came to Malik, having memorized the Mouvatta outwardly: I said: I wish to hear it from him, and he said: seek one who reads for you."

I said: "You may well hear my reading: if it be easy to you, I read for myself."

Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Himmani: Abou Oubayd narrated to us, and said:

"I saw ach-Chafii at Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, having handed him fifty dinars, whereas before that he had handed him fifty dirhams, and he said: if you desire knowledge, hold fast to it."

Abou Oubayd said: I then heard ach-Chafii say:

"I wrote from Muhammad a camel's load: when Muhammad gave it me, he said to me: be not shy."

He said: "Had I had with me one who would shame you, I would not have accepted your generosity."

Ibn Abi Hatim: ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"I took from Muhammad ibn al-Hasan the burden of a she-camel: nothing rests upon it but my hearing."

Ahmad ibn Abi Chourayh said: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"I spent sixty dinars upon the books of Muhammad, then meditated them, and set beside every question a hadith (meaning: refuting him with it)."

Haroun ibn Sa'id said: ach-Chafii said to me:

"I took frankincense for a year for memorization, and bloodletting followed me for a year."

Abou Oubayd said: I never saw one more intelligent than ach-Chafii; and Younous ibn Abd al-A'la said the like, to the point that he said: "were a nation gathered, his intellect would contain them."

I say: this is by way of exaggeration: for the man perfect of intellect, were he to lose of his intellect about a quarter, he would suffer a defect on account of it, while peers would remain to him: were half that intellect to leave him, the defect would show upon him: how then if two thirds of his intellect left him! Were you therefore to take the intellects of three persons, for instance, and make them one intellect, there would result from it one perfect of intellect and more.

A group: ar-Rabi narrated to us: I heard al-Houmaydi: I heard Mouslim ibn Khalid az-Zanji say to ach-Chafii: give fatwa then, O Abou Abdallah: the time has come, by Allah, for you to give fatwa,

while he was fifteen years old.

And it was narrated by Muhammad ibn Bichr az-Zanbari and Abou Nou'aym al-Istirabadi, from ar-Rabi, from al-Houmaydi, who said: az-Zanji said.

And this is more likely: for al-Houmaydi is too young for hearing from Mouslim, and we have seen in his Musnad no narration from him.

A group: ar-Rabi narrated to us: ach-Chafii said: "that a servant meet Allah bearing every sin save association is better than that he meet Him bearing anything of passions."

Az-Zoubayr al-Istirabadi: Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Adam narrated to me, in Egypt: Ibn Abd al-Hakam narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: "were people to know what is in speech of passions, they would flee from it as they flee from the lion."

Younous as-Sadafi said: I never saw one more intelligent than ach-Chafii: I debated with him one day upon a question, then we parted, and he met me: he took my hand, then said: O Abou Moussa, would it not be upright that we be brothers though we agree not upon a question?

I say: this indicates the perfection of the intellect of this imam and his understanding of himself: and his peers ceased not to differ.

Abou Ja'far at-Tirmidhi: Abou al-Fadl al-Wachjardi narrated to me: I heard Abou Abdallah as-Saghani say: I asked Yahya ibn Aktham about Abou Oubayd and ach-Chafii: which of the two is more knowing?

He said: Abou Oubayd used to come to us here often: he was a man who, when books aided him, composed well, and he arranged them by the beauty of his expressions, through his strength in Arabic: as for ach-Chafii, we were often at Muhammad ibn al-Hasan in debate: he was a man Qurashi of intellect, understanding and reflection, pure of intellect, understanding and brain, swift of hitting (or a word like it): had he had more hearing of hadith, the community of Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, would have dispensed with him over every other of the fuqaha.

Ma'mar ibn Chabib said: I heard al-Ma'moun say: I have tested Muhammad ibn Idris in everything, and found him complete.

Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn bint ach-Chafii said: I heard my father and my uncle say: Soufyan ibn Ouyayna, whenever a matter of interpretation or fatwa came to him, would turn to ach-Chafii and say: ask this one.

And Tamim ibn Abdallah said: I heard Souwayd ibn Sa'id say:

"I was at Soufyan: ach-Chafii came, greeted and sat: Ibn Ouyayna narrated a delicate hadith,

and ach-Chafii fainted.

It was said: O Abou Muhammad, Muhammad ibn Idris has died, and Ibn Ouyayna said: if he has died, he has died the best of the people of his time."

Al-Hakim: I heard Abou Sa'id ibn Abi Outhman: I heard al-Hasan the son of the companion of Chach: I heard ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii, and he was asked about the Quran?

He said: "Fie, fie! The Quran is the speech of Allah: whoever says: created, has disbelieved."

This chain is authentic.

Abou Dawoud and Abou Hatim: from Abou Thawr: I heard ach-Chafii say: none ever wrapped himself in theology and prospered.

Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Adam: Ibn Abd al-Hakam narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: "were people to know what is in speech and passions, they would flee from it as they flee the lion."

Az-Zoubayr ibn Abd al-Wahid: Ali ibn Muhammad informed me, in Egypt: Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hakam narrated to us, who said: ach-Chafii, after he had debated with Hafs al-Fard, loathed speech, and would say: "by Allah, that the scholar give a fatwa and it be said: the scholar erred, is better for him

than that he speak and it be said: heretic; and nothing is more hateful to me than theology and its people."

I say: this indicates that the doctrine of Abou Abdallah is that error in the fundamentals is not like error in the exercise of judgment in the branches.

Ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman: I heard ach-Chafii say: whoever swears by one of the names of Allah, then perjures, upon him is expiation: for the name of Allah is not created; and whoever swears by the Ka'ba, by as-Safa and al-Marwa, no expiation rests upon him: for that is created, and that other is not created.

And Abou Hatim said: Harmala narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: the caliphs are five: Abou Bakr, Omar, Outhman, Ali, and Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz.

Al-Harith ibn Sourayj said: I heard Yahya al-Qattan say: it is I who invoke Allah for ach-Chafii, I single him out with it.

And Abou Bakr ibn Khallad said: it is I who invoke Allah, at the close of my prayer, for ach-Chafii.

Al-Houssayn ibn Ali al-Karabisi said: ach-Chafii said: every theologian standing upon the Book and the Sunna, he is the earnest one; and all besides, he is this demon.

Ibn Khuzayma and a group said: Younous ibn Abd al-A'la narrated to us: ach-Chafii said: of the foundation it is not said: why, nor: how.

And from Younous: he heard ach-Chafii say: the foundation is the Quran and the Sunna, and analogy upon the two of them; and consensus is greater than the singular hadith.

Ibn Abi Hatim: I heard Younous say: ach-Chafii said: the foundation is a Quran or a sunna; if not, analogy upon the two of them; and when the hadith is authentic it is sunna; and consensus is greater than the singular hadith; and the hadith is according to its apparent; and when the hadith bears meanings, that which most resembles its apparent; and the discontinuous is nothing, except the discontinuous of Ibn al-Moussayyib: and everyone I saw employ the singular hadith: the people of Medina employed

in the teflis his saying, peace be upon him: when a man attains his wealth with his hand, he is most deserving of it.

And the people of Iraq employed the hadith of the urma.

Ibn Abi Hatim: ar-Rabi narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: the reading of hadith is better than voluntary prayer.

And he said: the seeking of knowledge is more excellent than optional prayer.

Ibn Abi Hatim: Younous narrated to us: I said to ach-Chafii: our master al-Layth says: were you to see a man of passion walking upon the water, I would not accept him.

He said: he fell short: were I to see him walking in the air, I would not accept him.

Ar-Rabi said: I heard ach-Chafii say to some of the people of hadith: you are the herbalists, and we are the physicians.

His stance on theology

Zakariyya as-Saji: Ahmad ibn Mardak ar-Razi narrated to me: I heard Abdallah ibn Salih, companion of al-Layth, say: we were at ach-Chafii in his session: he began speaking upon establishing the report of the single narrator from the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: we wrote it, and went with it to Ibrahim ibn

Oulayya, who was of the youths of Abou Bakr al-Asamm, and his session was by the door of the sufis: when we read upon him, he began arguing by its invalidation.

We wrote his word therefore, and went with it to ach-Chafii: he demolished it, and spoke of its invalidation; then we wrote it, and brought it to Ibn Oulayya: he demolished it; then we brought it to ach-Chafii, and he said: Ismail ibn Oulayya is astray: he sat at the door of error leading people astray.

I say: Ibrahim was among the great of the Jahmites, and his father Ismail is the doyen of the muhaddiths, an imam.

His knowledge and his brilliance

Al-Mouzani: I heard ach-Chafii say: whoever learns the Quran, his worth becomes great; whoever speaks in fiqh, his measure grows; whoever writes hadith, his proof becomes strong; whoever meditates on language, his nature becomes fine; whoever meditates on arithmetic, his opinion becomes ample; and whoever guards not his soul, his knowledge profits him not.

Ibrahim ibn Mattouwayh al-Asbahani: I heard Younous ibn Abd al-A'la say: ach-Chafii said: every hadith come from Iraq having no root in the Hijaz: accept it not, though it be authentic: I want only your counsel.

I say: then ach-Chafii retracted from that, and authenticated that whose chain was established for them.

And it is narrated from him: if the hadith has no root in the Hijaz, it is weakened (or he said: its marrow departed).

We were informed in his book by Ibrahim ibn Ali the worshipper, we were informed by Zakariyya al-Olbi and a group, who said:

Abd al-Awwal ibn Isa informed us, the sheikh of Islam Abou Ismail al-Harawi informed us, and said:

Ya'qoub instructed me, and I wrote it from his hand: Abou Ali al-Khalidi informed us: I heard Muhammad ibn al-Houssayn az-Za'farani: I heard Outhman ibn Sa'id ibn Bachchar al-Anmati: I heard al-Mouzani say:

"I meditated in theology before the coming of ach-Chafii: when he arrived I came to him, and asked him a question of theology, and he said to me: do you know where you are?

I said: yes: in the mosque of Fostat.

He said to me: you are at Taran (Outhman said: Taran is a place in the Red Sea where a ship scarce escapes it); then he presented me a question of fiqh: I answered, he introduced a thing that corrupted my answer: I answered otherwise, he introduced a thing that corrupted my answer: whenever I answered with something he corrupted it.

Then he said to me: this is fiqh in which are the Book, the Sunna and the sayings of people: one such as this enters it: how then theology concerning the Lord of the worlds, wherein slips are many?

I abandoned theology therefore, and turned to fiqh."

Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal: I heard Muhammad ibn Dawoud say:

"through all the time of ach-Chafii it was never memorized that he spoke of anything of the passions, nor that it was attributed to him, nor that he was known by it, despite his hatred of the people of theology and innovations."

And narrated Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal, from his father, who said:

"when the report was established with ach-Chafii he followed it; and the best quality in him: he did not desire theology: his aim was fiqh."

And Abou Abd ar-Rahman as-Soulami said: I heard Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Hamid as-Soulami: I heard Muhammad ibn Aqil ibn al-Azhar say:

"a man came to al-Mouzani asking him a thing of theology, and he said: I loathe this; rather I forbade it, as ach-Chafii forbade it: I heard ach-Chafii say:

Malik was asked of theology and the unity, and said: it is impossible that we think of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, that he taught his community the istinja and taught them not the unity; and the unity is what the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: I was commanded to fight the people until they say: there is no deity but Allah: by which blood and wealth are protected: the reality of the unity."

Zakariyya as-Saji: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail: I heard Houssayn ibn Ali al-Karabisi say:

"I attended ach-Chafii, and Bichr al-Marisi entered upon him: he said to Bichr: inform me of what you call to: speaking books, an imposed ordinance, a subsisting sunna, and had you found among the ancients the debate of it and the questioning?

Bichr said: no, except that we cannot bear to oppose it.

Ach-Chafii said: you have confessed upon yourself error: where then are you of speech in fiqh and reports, the people would follow you there, and you leave this?

He said: we have zeal in it."

When Bichr went out, ach-Chafii said: he shall not prosper.

Abou Thawr and ar-Rabi: they both heard ach-Chafii say: none ever wrapped himself in theology and prospered.

Al-Houssayn ibn Ismail al-Mahamili said: al-Mouzani said: I asked ach-Chafii a question of theology, and he said: ask me of a thing: when I err in it, say: you erred; and ask me not of a thing of which, when I err in it, you say: you disbelieved.

Zakariyya as-Saji: I heard Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hakam say: ach-Chafii said to me: O Muhammad, if a man asks you a thing of theology, answer him not: for if he asks you of blood-money and you say: a dirham, or a danq, he says to you: you erred; and if he asks you a thing of theology and you slip, he says to you: you disbelieved.

Ar-Rabi said: I heard ach-Chafii say: controversy in religion hardens the heart and begets grudges.

And Salih Jazara said: I heard ar-Rabi say: ach-Chafii said: O Rabi, accept from me three things: plunge not into the companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: for your opponent tomorrow is the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

And busy not yourself with theology: for I have seen of the people of theology the negation.

And al-Mouzani added: and busy not yourself with the stars.

And from Houssayn al-Karabisi, who said: ach-Chafii was asked a thing of theology,

and he grew angry, and said: ask of this Hafs al-Fard and his companions, may Allah disgrace them.

Al-Asamm: I heard ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say: I wish people learned this knowledge (meaning his books), without anything of it being attributed to me.

And from ach-Chafii: my judgment concerning the people of theology is the judgment of Omar concerning Sabigh.

Az-Za'farani and others: we heard ach-Chafii say: my judgment concerning the people of theology is that they be struck with palm-rod staves, carried upon camels, and paraded among the tribes, it being cried against them: this is the reward of him who abandons the Book and the Sunna and turns to theology.

And Abou Abd ar-Rahman ach-Chirazi, companion of ach-Chafii, said: ach-Chafii said: my doctrine concerning the people of theology is to bring their heads to agreement with whips, and to scatter them through the lands.

I say: this is perhaps multiplicative of the imam.

Ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say: I never debated anyone for victory, except upon the truth in my sight.

And az-Za'farani from him: I never debated anyone except in good counsel.

Zakariyya as-Saji: Ahmad ibn al-Abbas an-Nasa'i narrated to us: I heard

az-Za'farani: I heard ach-Chafii say: I never debated anyone in theology but once, and I seek forgiveness of Allah for that.

Sa'id ibn Ahmad al-Lakhmi: Younous ibn Abd al-A'la narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: if you hear a man say: the name is not the named, and the thing is not what is named, bear witness then against him of heresy.

Sa'id: an Egyptian: I know him not.

And it is narrated from ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say in the book "of bequests": were a man to bequeath his books of knowledge to another, and among them were books of theology, they would not enter into the bequest: for it is not of knowledge.

And from Abou Thawr: I said to ach-Chafii: set into irja a book.

He said: leave this.

And it is as if he dispraised theology.

Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Khuzayma: I heard ar-Rabi say: when Hafs al-Fard addressed ach-Chafii harshly, Hafs said: the Quran is created.

Ach-Chafii said to him: you have disbelieved by Allah the Magnificent.

Al-Mouzani said: ach-Chafii forbade plunging into theology.

Abou Hatim ar-Razi: Younous narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: the mother of al-Marisi said to me: speak to Bichr that he cease theology: I spoke to him therefore, and he called me to theology.

As-Saji: Ibrahim ibn Ziyad al-Ouboulli narrated to us: I heard al-Bouwayti say: I asked ach-Chafii: shall I pray behind the Rafidite?

He said: pray not behind the Rafidite, nor the Qadarite, nor the Murjiite.

I said: describe them to us.

He said: whoever says: faith is word, he is a Murjiite; and whoever says: Abou Bakr and Omar are not two imams, he is a Rafidite; and whoever makes the will incline to himself, he is a Qadarite.

Ibn Abi Hatim: I heard ar-Rabi: ach-Chafii said to me: were I to wish to compose against every opponent a book I would do so: but theology is not of my station, and I love not that anything of it be attributed to me.

I say: this pure breath is multiplicative of ach-Chafii.

Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Aban the qadi said: Abou Yahya Zakariyya as-Saji narrated to us: al-Mouzani narrated to us, and he said: I said: if anyone would bring out what is in my innermost, and what clung to my thought of the matter of unity, it is ach-Chafii: I therefore went to him while he was in the mosque of Egypt: when I cast myself before him I said: a question of unity has stirred in my innermost: and I know that none knows your knowledge: what then have you?

He grew angry, then said: do you know where you are?

I said: yes.

He said: this is the place wherein Allah drowned Pharaon.

Has it reached you that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, commanded questioning of that?

I said: no.

He said: did the Companions speak of it?

I said: no.

He said: do you know how many stars are in the sky?

I said: no.

He said: and one star of them: do you know its kind, its rising, its setting, of what it was created?

I said: no.

He said: a thing you see with your own eye of creation you do not know: you speak of the knowledge of its Creator?!

Then he asked me a question of

ablution: I erred in it: he branched it upon four aspects, and I hit nothing of them.

He said: a thing you need five times in the day: you leave its knowledge, and strain for the knowledge of the Creator: when that stirs your innermost, return to Allah, and to His word, the Most High: {Your deity is one deity: there is no deity but He, the Merciful, the Compassionate... Indeed in the creation of the heavens and the earth...}, the verse, sourate al-Baqara, verses 163 and 164: argue therefore from the creature upon the Creator, and strain not for the knowledge of what your mind has not reached.

He said: I repented therefore.

Ibn Abi Hatim said: in my book from ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman, who said: I attended ach-Chafii; or Abou Chou'ayb narrated to me: only I know that Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hakam attended, and Youssouf ibn Amr, and Hafs al-Fard, and ach-Chafii named him: Hafs the solitary: Hafs asked Abdallah: what do you say of the Quran?

He refused to answer him: he asked Youssouf: he answered him not, and pointed to ach-Chafii: he asked therefore ach-Chafii, and argued against him: the debate lengthened therein, and ach-Chafii rose with the proof against him, that the Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated, and by the disbelief of Hafs.

Ar-Rabi said: I met therefore Hafs, and he said: ach-Chafii intended to kill me.

His creed

Ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say: faith is word and deed: it increases and decreases.

And I heard him say: Allah has passed over what is in the hearts, and He wrote upon people deeds and sayings.

And al-Mouzani said: ach-Chafii said: it shall be said to him who abandons the prayer and does not perform it: pray; else we invite you to repent: if you repent, else we kill you, as one asks you disbelief: and we say: believe; else we kill you.

And from ach-Chafii, who said: none ever resisted me upon the truth and withstood, but he fell from my eyes: and none accepted him but his awe, though I believed in his affection.

Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal: I heard my father say: ach-Chafii said: you are more knowing than we of the authentic reports: when therefore there is an authentic report, inform me, that I may go to it, be it a Kufan, or a Basran, or a Syrian.

And Harmala said: ach-Chafii said: everything I have said contrary to my word from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, the authentic is more worthy: and follow me not blindly.

Ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say: when you find in my book a contradiction to the sunna of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, say it then, and leave what I said.

And I heard him say, and a man had said to him: do you take this hadith, O Abou Abdallah?

He said: "since when have I narrated from the Messenger of Allah an authentic hadith and not taken it? Make me bear witness therefore that my intellect has departed."

And al-Houmaydi said: ach-Chafii narrated one day a hadith, and I said: will you take it?

He said: "you saw me come out of a church, or wearing a girdle, until I heard from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, a hadith to which I would not say?!"

Ar-Rabi said: and I heard him say: what sky shades me, and what earth bears me, were I to narrate from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, a hadith to which I would not say.

And Abou Thawr said: I heard him say: every hadith from the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, is my saying, though you hear it not from me.

And it is narrated that he said: when the hadith is authentic it is my doctrine; and when the hadith is authentic, strike my saying against the wall.

Muhammad ibn Bichr al-Akari and others: ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman narrated to us, who said: ach-Chafii had divided the night: its first third he wrote; the second he prayed; and the third he slept.

I say: his three deeds were worship by intention.

Zakariyya as-Saji said: Muhammad ibn Ismail narrated to us: Houssayn al-Karabisi narrated to me: I passed the night with ach-Chafii one night: he prayed about a third of the night, and I never saw him exceed fifty verses: if he exceeded, a hundred verses; and he never passed a verse of mercy but he asked Allah, nor a verse of punishment but he sought refuge: as if hope and fear were both gathered in him.

Ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman said it of him by two routes, rather more: ach-Chafii completed the Quran in the month of ramadan sixty completions.

And Ibn Abi Hatim narrated it from him, and he added: all of that in prayer.

Abou Awana al-Isfarayini: ar-Rabi narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: I have not been sated since sixteen years but once: I put in my hand, and cast it out.

Ibn Abi Hatim narrated it from ar-Rabi, and he added: for satiety weighs down the body, hardens the heart, removes acuteness, brings sleep, and weakens for worship.

Az-Zoubayr ibn Abd al-Wahid: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Qasim ibn Matar informed us: I heard ar-Rabi: ach-Chafii said to me: hold to asceticism: for asceticism upon the ascetic is more beautiful than adornment upon the full-bosomed woman.

Az-Zoubayr said: and Ibrahim ibn al-Hasan the sufi narrated to me: I heard Harmala: I heard ach-Chafii say: I never swore by Allah, in truth nor in falsehood.

Abou Dawoud said: Abou Thawr narrated to me, who said: ach-Chafii seldom kept back a thing of his liberality.

And Amr ibn Sawwad said: ach-Chafii was the most liberal of people with the dinar and the dirham and food.

Ach-Chafii said to me: I was ruined in my life three ruinations: I sold my little and my much until I adorned my daughter and my wife, and I never pawned.

Ar-Rabi said: a man grasped the stirrup of ach-Chafii: he said to me: give him four dinars, and excuse me to him.

Sa'id ibn Ahmad al-Lakhmi the Egyptian: I heard al-Mouzani say: I was with ach-Chafii one day: we went out to the mounds: he passed by a mark: behold a man shooting with an Arab bow: ach-Chafii stopped over him looking, and he shot well: he hit with arrows.

Ach-Chafii said: well done, and he invoked for him, then said: give him three dinars, and excuse me to him.

And ar-Rabi said: ach-Chafii passed by the cobblers: his whip fell: a lad leapt, wiped it with his sleeve, and handed it to him: he gave him seven dinars.

Ar-Rabi said: I married: ach-Chafii asked me: how much did you pay her?

I said: thirty dinars, of which I paid six: he gave me twenty-four dinars.

Abou Ja'far at-Tirmidhi: I heard ar-Rabi say: ach-Chafii had these hemorrhoids: he had a cushion stuffed with leather upon which he sat: when he rode I took that cushion and walked behind him: a man handed him a paper in which he said: I am a grain merchant: my capital is one dirham, and I have married: help me.

He said: O Rabi, give him thirty dinars, and excuse me to him.

I said: may Allah mend you: ten dirhams suffice this one.

He said: woe to you! and what will he do with thirty? In this, or in that (he counted what he would do of his outfit): give it.

Ibn Abi Hatim: we were informed by Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ibrahim: Muhammad ibn Rawh narrated to us: az-Zoubayr ibn Soulayman al-Qourachi narrated to us, from ach-Chafii, who said: Harthama went out: he made me read the salam of the Commander of the Believers Haroun, and said: he has ordered you five thousand dinars.

He said: the wealth was carried to him: he called a cupper, had his hair cut, and gave him fifty dinars; then he took cloth pieces, made them into small purses, and distributed them among the Qurashis who were at the court and those of Mecca, until he returned not to his house with less than a hundred dinars.

Muhammad ibn Bichr al-Akari: I heard ar-Rabi say: al-Houmaydi informed me, and said: ach-Chafii came to San'a: a tent was pitched for him, and he had ten thousand dinars: people came and asked him: the tent was not struck but he had nothing of it left.

Al-Asamm and a group narrated it from ar-Rabi.

And from Ibrahim ibn Bourana, who said: ach-Chafii was corpulent, tall, noble.

Ibn Abd al-Hakam said: ach-Chafii was the most liberal of people with what he earned: he passed by us, and if he found me, else he said: say to Muhammad when he comes: he comes to the house: for I do not lunch until he comes.

Dawoud ibn Ali al-Asbahani: Abou Thawr narrated to us, and said: ach-Chafii was among the most liberal of people: he bought the slave girl of the craft that cooked and made halwa, and stipulated upon her that he not approach her: for he was ill, unable to approach women because of a basorin in him at that time: and he said to us: desire what you wish.

Abou Ali ibn Hamakan said: Abou Ishaq al-Mouzakki narrated to me: Ibn Khuzayma narrated to us: ar-Rabi narrated to us, and said: the companions of Malik used to boast and say: there attend the session of Malik about sixty turbaned ones: and by Allah, I counted in the session of ach-Chafii three hundred turbaned ones besides those who strayed from me.

Ar-Rabi said: I bought for ach-Chafii perfume for a dinar, and he said: from whom did you buy?

I said: from that blond blue-eyed one.

He said: blond, blue-eyed: return it, return it: never came to me good of a blond.

Abou Hatim: Harmala narrated to us: ach-Chafii narrated to us and said: beware the one-eyed, the lame, the squinting, the blond, the pot-bellied, and every one defective of form: for he is a man of crookedness, and his dealing is hard.

Al-Akari: I heard ar-Rabi say: I was myself, and al-Mouzani, and al-Bouwayti, at ach-Chafii: he looked at us, and said to me: you will die in hadith.

And he said to al-Mouzani: this one, were the devil to look at him, he would cut off his thong.

And he said to al-Bouwayti: you will die in iron.

He said: I entered therefore upon al-Bouwayti in the days of the trial: I saw him fettered, shackled.

And a man came to him once and asked him (meaning ach-Chafii) a question, and he said: are you a weaver?

He said: I have hired laborers.

Ahmad ibn Salama an-Naysabouri said: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Idris, copyist of al-Houmaydi, said: I heard al-Houmaydi say: ach-Chafii said: I went out to the Yaman in quest of the books of physiognomy until I wrote them, and gathered them.

And from ar-Rabi, who said: my brother passed by: ach-Chafii saw him, and said: is this your brother? though he had never seen him.

I said: yes.

Abou Ali ibn Hamakan said: Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Haroun al-Hamadhani the equitable narrated to us: Abou Mouslim al-Kajji narrated to us: al-Asma'i narrated to us, from ach-Chafii: the root

of knowledge: establishment.

And its fruit: safety.

And the root of piety: contentment.

And its fruit: rest.

And the root of patience: resolve.

And its fruit: victory.

And the root of deed: success from Allah.

And its fruit: prosperity.

And the end of every matter: truth.

Reached us from al-Koudaymi: al-Asma'i narrated to us, and said: I heard ach-Chafii say: the scholar asks about what he knows and what he knows not: he establishes what he knows, and learns what he knows not; and the ignorant grows angry at learning, and deems himself above teaching.

Abou Hatim: Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Hassan narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: knowledge is two knowledges: the knowledge of religion, which is fiqh; and the knowledge of this world, which is medicine: and all besides, of poetry and other, is toil and trifling.

And from ar-Rabi, who said: I said to ach-Chafii: which of the fuqaha is most able in debate?

He said: he who has trained his tongue to gallop in the arena of expressions: he stumbles not when eyes point at him.

In its chain Abou Bakr an-Naqqach, who is worn out.

And from ach-Chafii: evil is the provision toward the return: aggression against the servants.

Younous as-Sadafi said: ach-Chafii said to me: there is no way to safety from

people: look then to him in whom is your uprightness, and hold to him.

And from ach-Chafii, who said: I never raised anyone above his station but that he lowered me by the measure of what I raised him.

And from him: the loss of the scholar is to be without brothers; and the loss of the ignorant is the paucity of his intellect: and more lost than both is he who befriended one who has no intellect.

And from him: when you fear for your deed self-admiration, remember the pleasure of Him whom you seek, in what felicity you desire, from what punishment you guard: whoever reflects on that, his deed becomes small in his eyes.

The instruments of leadership are five: truth of tongue, concealing of secret, fidelity to covenant, taking initiative in counsel, and rendering of trust.

Muhammad ibn Fahd the Egyptian: ar-Rabi narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: whoever is sought to anger and angers not is a donkey; and whoever is sought to please and is not pleased is a devil.

Abou Sa'id ibn Younous: al-Houssayn ibn Muhammad ibn ad-Dahhak

al-Farsi narrated to us: I heard al-Mouzani: I heard ach-Chafii, who said:

"whatever people of a house whose women go out to other men, and whose men to other women, there will be in their children madness."

Zakariyya ibn Ahmad al-Balkhi the qadi: I heard Abou Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Nasr at-Tirmidhi say:

"I saw in sleep the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in his mosque at Medina: as if I came and greeted him, and I said: O Messenger of Allah, shall I write the opinion of Malik?

He said: no.

I said: shall I write the opinion of Abou Hanifa?

He said: no.

I said: shall I write the opinion of ach-Chafii?

He said then with his hand thus: as if he rebuked me, and said: you say: the opinion of ach-Chafii! It is not an opinion: rather it is a rebuttal of whoever contradicted my sunna."

It was narrated by more than one, from Abou Ja'far.

Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Hatim: narrated to me Abou Outhman al-Khwarizmi, residing at Mecca (in what he wrote me): Muhammad ibn Rachiq narrated to us: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Balkhi narrated to us, and said:

"I said in sleep: O Messenger of Allah, what do you say of the word of Abou Hanifa, ach-Chafii and Malik?

He said: no word but my word: but the word of ach-Chafii is against the word of the people of innovations."

And it was narrated from two faces: from Ahmad ibn al-Hasan at-Tirmidhi the hafiz, who said:

"I saw the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in sleep: I asked him of the divergence, and he said: as for ach-Chafii, he is of me and toward me."

And in the other narration: "he revives my sunna."

Narrated Ja'far, nephew of Abou Thawr al-Kalbi, from his uncle, who said:

"Abd ar-Rahman ibn Mahdi wrote to ach-Chafii, while a young man, that he compose for him a book in which would be the meanings of the Quran, and gather the acceptance of reports, the proof of consensus, and the exposition of the abrogating and the abrogated: he composed therefore for him the book of "the Risala."

And Abou Thawr said: Abd ar-Rahman ibn Mahdi said to me: I never pray a prayer but that I invoke for ach-Chafii in it.

And az-Za'farani said: Bichr al-Marisi performed the pilgrimage: when he arrived he said:

"I saw in the Hijaz a man: I never saw his like, asking nor answering (meaning ach-Chafii)."

He said: he came to us therefore, and the people gathered to him, and drew off from Bichr: I came to Bichr, and said: this is ach-Chafii whom you claimed had come.

He said: he has changed from what he was.

He said: Bichr was but the likeness of the Jews in the affair of Abdallah ibn Salam.

Al-Maymouni said: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal say: six men for whom I invoke as one invokes by charm: one of them is ach-Chafii.

And Muhammad ibn Haroun az-Zanjani said: Abdallah ibn Ahmad narrated to us: I said to my father:

"what man was ach-Chafii, for I hear you multiply invocation for him?"

He said: "O my son, he was like the sun to the world, and like health to people: has either of these two a successor, or is there substitute for them?"

Az-Zanjani: I know him not.

Abou Dawoud said: I never saw Abou Abdallah incline to anyone as he inclined to ach-Chafii.

And Qoutayba ibn Sa'id said: ach-Chafii is an imam.

I say: this imam, besides his surpassing cleverness and breadth of knowledge, took what strengthened his memory.

Haroun ibn Sa'id al-Ayli said: ach-Chafii said to us:

"I took frankincense for a year for memorization, and casting of blood followed me a year."

The hafiz Abou al-Hasan ad-Daruqutni said: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Sahl an-Naboulsi the martyr narrated to us: Abou Sa'id ibn al-A'rabi informed us: I heard Tamim ibn Abdallah ar-Razi: I heard Abou Zur'a: I heard Qoutayba ibn Sa'id say:

"ath-Thawri died, and piety died; ach-Chafii died, and the sunnas died; and Ahmad ibn Hanbal will die, and innovations will appear."

Abou Thawr al-Kalbi: I never saw the like of ach-Chafii, nor did he himself see his like.

And Ayyoub ibn Souwayd said: I never thought I would live to see the like of ach-Chafii.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal said it of him, by routes: Allah apportions to people, at the head of every hundred, him who will teach them the sunnas, and drive falsehood away from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

He said: we looked therefore: behold, at the head of the hundred, Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz, and at the head of the two hundred, ach-Chafii.

Harmala said: I heard ach-Chafii say: I was named at Bagdad: defender of hadith.

Al-Fadl ibn Ziyad: I heard Ahmad say:

"none has touched an inkwell nor a reed but that ach-Chafii has upon his neck a merit."

And from Ahmad: ach-Chafii was among the most eloquent of people.

Ibrahim al-Harbi said: I asked Abou Abdallah of ach-Chafii, and he said: an authentic hadith, and an authentic opinion.

Al-Hasan az-Za'farani said: I never read upon ach-Chafii a letter of these books but that Ahmad was present.

And Ishaq ibn Rahawayh said: whoever spoke by opinion (and he mentioned a group of the imams of judgment), ach-Chafii follows more than he, and errs less than he: ach-Chafii is an imam.

Yahya ibn Ma'in said: there is no harm in him.

And from Abou Zur'a ar-Razi, who said: there is not with ach-Chafii a hadith containing error.

And Abou Dawoud as-Sijistani said: to my knowledge ach-Chafii has no hadith in error.

I say: this is of the most conclusive of things that he is trustworthy, a proof, a memorizer, and what think you of the word of such two.

The hafiz Abou Bakr al-Khatib moreover composed a book upon the establishment of argumentation by the imam ach-Chafii, and none spoke against him but an envier or one ignorant of his state: that false speech of theirs was therefore what caused the rising of his rank and the loftiness of his worth: and such is the sunna of Allah with His servants: {O you who believe, be not like those who hurt Moussa: Allah cleared him of what they said, and he was with Allah distinguished... O you who believe, fear Allah, and say a word of right} (sourate al-Ahzab, verses 69 and 70).

Abou Hatim ar-Razi said: Muhammad ibn Idris is truthful.

And ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman said: ach-Chafii, by Allah, his tongue was greater than his books: had you seen him you would have said: these are not his books.

And from Younous ibn Abd al-A'la, who said: ach-Chafii was naught but an enchanter: we knew not what he said when we sat around him: his expressions were as sugar; and he was given sweetness of speech, beauty of eloquence, surpassing cleverness, flowing of mind, perfection of elocution, and presence of proof.

So, from Abd al-Malik ibn Hicham the philologist, who said: our sitting with ach-Chafii was long: I never heard from him a solecism.

I say: how should that be, while one striking examples strikes with his like in eloquence: he was the most eloquent of Quraysh in his time, and the language was taken from him.

Ahmad ibn Abi Chourayh ar-Razi said: I never saw one more eloquent of mouth, nor more articulate, than ach-Chafii.

And al-Asma'i said: I took the poetry of Houdayl from ach-Chafii.

And az-Zoubayr ibn Bakkar said: I took the poetry of Houdayl and her battles from my uncle Mouss'ab ibn Abdallah, and he said: I took it from ach-Chafii by memory.

Moussa ibn Sahl al-Jaouni said: Ahmad ibn Salih narrated to us: ach-Chafii said to me:

"devote yourself before you become a chief: for if you become chief you will not be able to devote yourself."

Then Ahmad said: when ach-Chafii spoke his voice was as the voice of a cymbal and a bell, from the beauty of his voice.

Ibn Abd al-Hakam said: I never saw ach-Chafii debate anyone but that I pitied him: and were

you to see ach-Chafii debating you, you would think him a lion eating you: and he is he who taught the people the proofs.

Ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman said: ach-Chafii, may Allah have mercy on him, was asked a question, and he was delighted with himself, and began saying:

"When thorny questions confront me / I unveil their realities by meditation

And I am not among men the simpleton / who asks this one and that: what is the report?

But I am the breath, of the two breaths, the younger / toiling in good, untying knots of evil"

He narrated from Haroun ibn Sa'id al-Ayli, who said: had ach-Chafii debated that this stone pillar is wood, he would have prevailed: for his capacity in debate.

Az-Za'farani said: ach-Chafii came to us at Bagdad in the year five and ninety: he stayed with us two years, and went out to Mecca; then he came in the year eight and ninety: he stayed with us months, and departed (meaning: to Egypt).

I say: he came to Bagdad in the year seventeen and eighty and one hundred, and ar-Rachid granted him wealth, and he kept close to Muhammad ibn al-Hasan a while, and never met Abou Youssouf the qadi: he died before the coming of ach-Chafii.

Al-Mouzani said: when ach-Chafii reached Egypt I said in myself: if anyone would bring out of my innermost of the matter of unity, it is he.

This account and this narration precede the hearing of Zakariyya as-Saji from al-Mouzani.

He said: I spoke to him therefore: he grew angry, and said: do you know where you are? This is the place wherein Pharaon drowned.

Has it reached you that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, commanded questioning of that?

I said: no.

He said: and did the Companions speak of it?

I said: no.

Al-Hasan ibn Rachiq the hafiz said: Faqir ibn Moussa ibn Faqir al-Aswani narrated to us: Abou Hanifa Qahzam ibn Abdallah al-Aswani narrated to us: ach-Chafii narrated to us: Abou Hanifa ibn Simak ibn al-Fadl al-Khawlani ach-Chihabi narrated to us: Ibn Abi Dhi'b narrated to us, from al-Maqburi, from Abou Chourayh al-Ka'bi:

that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said on the day of the conquest: he whose slain one was slain is of the better of the two looks: if he loves retaliation he takes; and if he loves, the retribution is his.

Ad-Daruqutni narrated it, from Ibn Rachiq.

Al-Hasan ibn Soufyan: Abou Thawr narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii (and he was of the mines of fiqh, the whetters of meanings, and the treasuries of expressions) say:

"the judgment of meanings is contrary to the judgment of expressions: for meanings are spread toward a boundless end, and the names of meanings are counted and bounded; and all the kinds of indication toward meanings, by word and beyond word, are five things: the word, then the sign, then the compact, then the line, then what is named the disposition: and the disposition, in the state, is the indication that does not stand in place of those kinds and does not fall short of those indications: and each of these five has a form distinct from the form of its mate, and an adornment contrary to the adornment of its sister: and it is that which unveils to you the realities of meanings in the aggregate, their secrets in interpretation, their kinds and their individuals, their specific and their general, their nature in the pleasant and the harmful, and what is passion and rejection, fallen and abased."

Younous ibn Abd al-A'la said: ach-Chafii said to me:

"there is no way to safety from people: look to him in whom is your uprightness, and hold to him."

Harmala said: ach-Chafii was asked of a man having a date in his mouth, and said: if you ate it, my wife is divorced; and if you cast it, my wife is divorced.

He said: let him eat the half, and cast the half.

Ar-Rabi said: ach-Chafii said to me: if the acting fuqaha are not the allies of Allah, Allah has no ally.

And he said: the seeking of knowledge is more excellent than optional prayer.

Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hakam said: I never saw one more sparing of water in perfect purification than ach-Chafii.

Abou Thawr said: I heard ach-Chafii say: it befits the faqih to set dust upon his head, in humility to Allah, and in thanks to Allah.

Al-Asamm: I heard ar-Rabi say:

"a man asked ach-Chafii of the killer of the lizard: is ghusl upon him?

He said: this is the fatwa of old women."

Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn al-Ach'ath the Egyptian: Ibn Abd al-Hakam narrated to us, and said:

"my eye never saw the like of ach-Chafii: I came to Medina, and saw the companions of Abd al-Malik ibn al-Majichoun exalting their master, saying: our master is he who checkmated ach-Chafii.

He said: I met therefore Abd al-Malik, and asked him a question: he answered me, and I said: the proof?

He said: because Malik said such and such.

I said therefore in myself: far be it,

I ask you of the proof, and you say: my teacher said: whereas the proof is against you and your teacher."

Ibrahim ibn Abi Talib the hafiz said: I asked Abou Qoudama as-Sarakhsi of ach-Chafii, and Ahmad, and Abou Oubayd, and Ibn Rahawayh, and he said: ach-Chafii is the most of them a faqih.

Yahya ibn Mansour the qadi said: I heard the imam of imams Ibn Khuzayma say: and I said to him: do you know a sunna of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in the lawful and unlawful with which ach-Chafii did not endow his books?

He said: no.

Harmala said: ach-Chafii said:

"I made people read while I was thirteen years old, and I memorized the Mouvatta before I reached puberty."

Al-Hasan ibn Ali at-Tousi said: Abou Ismail at-Tirmidhi narrated to us: I heard al-Bouwayti say:

"ach-Chafii was asked: how many are the principles of laws?

He said: five hundred.

He was told: how many are the principles of sunnas?

He said: five hundred.

He was told: how many has Malik?

He said: all of them save thirty-five hadiths.

He was told: how many has Ibn Ouyayna?

He said: all of them save five."

Ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman said: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"whoever swears by one of the names of Allah then perjures, upon him is expiation: for the name of Allah is not created; and whoever swears by the Ka'ba, by as-Safa and al-Marwa, no expiation rests upon him: for it is created."

Harmala said: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"I wish that every knowledge I teach, people learn it, and I be rewarded for it without they praise me."

Muhammad ibn Mouslim ibn Wara said: I asked Ahmad ibn Hanbal: what do you see of the books of ach-Chafii that are with the Iraqis: are they dearer to you, or those in Egypt?

He said: hold to the books he made in Egypt: for he composed these books in Iraq and perfected them not: then he returned to Egypt and perfected those.

And I said to Ahmad: which of books do you see for me that I meditate in: the opinion of Malik, or ath-Thawri, or al-Awza'i?

He said to me a word so noble I hesitate to mention it, and said: hold to ach-Chafii: for he is the most of them correct, and the most of them follower of traditions.

The hafiz Abdallah ibn Najiya said: I heard Ibn Wara say:

"I returned from Egypt: I came to Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and he said to me: have you copied the books of ach-Chafii?

I said: no.

He said: you have failed: we knew not the general from the specific, nor the abrogating hadith from its abrogated, until we sat with ach-Chafii."

He said: that therefore carried me to return to Egypt, and I copied them.

Unique to Ibn Najiya in this account: Abdallah ibn Muhammad ar-Razi the sufi,

and he is not trustworthy.

Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub al-Faraji said: I heard Ali ibn al-Madini say: hold you to the books of ach-Chafii.

I say: and medicine was among the arts of this imam: he was versed in it.

More than one transmitted it: so, from him, who said: "wonderful is he who enters the bath then eats not within the hour: how would he live? and wonderful is he who is cupped then eats within the hour: how would he live?"

Harmala: from ach-Chafii, who said: whoever eats the citron then sleeps, I am not certain a sudden death strike him not.

Muhammad ibn Isma al-Jawzajani said: I heard ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"three things are the remedy of him who has no remedy, and the physicians wearied of treating them: the grape, the milk of the pregnant camel, and the sugar cane: were it not for the sugar cane I had not dwelt in your land."

And I heard him say: my boy was blind, seeing not the door of the house: I took for him marrow of liver, and applied it as kohl: he saw.

And from him: wonderful is he who sups on boiled egg then sleeps: how does he not die?

And from him: beans increase in the brain, and the brain increases the intellect.

And from him: I never saw aught more beneficial against contagion than the violet: it is anointed with and drunk.

Salih ibn Muhammad Jazara said: I heard ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"I know no knowledge after the lawful and unlawful straighter than medicine: except that the people of the Book have prevailed over us in it."

Harmala said: ach-Chafii lamented over what the Muslims had lost of medicine, and said: they lost its third, and entrusted it to the Jews and Christians.

And it is said: the imam meditated on something of the stars, then abandoned it, and repented of it.

So the hafiz Abou ach-Cheikh said: Amr ibn Outhman the Meccan narrated to us: the son of the daughter of ach-Chafii narrated to us: I heard my father say:

"ach-Chafii, while young, meditated on the stars: he never meditated on a thing but he surpassed in it: he sat therefore one day while his wife was being divorced: he calculated, and said:

she will bear a girl unmarriageable, upon her sex a black mole, she will die before such and such a day.

She bore as he said: he therefore fixed upon himself never to meditate in it, and he buried those books."

Fouran said: I divided the books of the imam Abou Abdallah among his sons, and found in them the two risalas of ach-Chafii, the Iraqi and the Egyptian, in the hand of Abou Abdallah, may Allah have mercy on him.

Abou Bakr as-Sawma'i said: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal say:

"the man of hadith never wearies of the books of ach-Chafii."

Ali ibn Ahmad ad-Doukhmisini said: I heard Ali ibn Ahmad ibn an-Nadr

al-Azdi: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and he was asked of ach-Chafii, and said:

"Allah has graced us with him: we had learned the word of those people, and copied their books, until he came to us: when we heard his word we knew he was more knowing than another: and we kept his company days and nights: we never saw of him but all good."

He was told: O Abou Abdallah, Yahya and Abou Oubayd were not content with him (pointing to shiism, and that the two accused him of it).

Ahmad ibn Hanbal said: we know not what they two say: and by Allah we never saw of him but good.

I say: whoever claims ach-Chafii was a shiite is a slanderer who knows not what he says.

Az-Zoubayr ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Istirabadi said: Hamza ibn Ali al-Jawhari informed us: ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman narrated to us, and said:

"we performed the pilgrimage with ach-Chafii: he never ascended a height nor descended a valley but he wept, reciting:

O rider, halt at al-Mouhassab, of Mina / and cry to the hasting rider and the halting one

At dawn, when the pilgrimage overflows toward Mina / white as the buckets girding the overflowing Euphrates

If love of the people of the house of Muhammad is rafd / let the two weights witness that I am a rafidite"

I say: were he a shiite (and far be it from him), he would not have said: the rightly guided caliphs are five, beginning with the Truthful, and ending with Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz.

The hafiz Ibn Adi said: Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ja'far al-Qazwini narrated to us: Salih ibn Ahmad narrated to us: I heard my father say:

"I heard the Mouvatta from ach-Chafii: for I saw him firmly established in it, though I had heard it from a group before him."

Al-Hakim: I heard Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali ach-Chachi the faqih say:

"I entered upon Ibn Khuzayma, and he said: O my son, with whom have you studied fiqh?

I named Abou al-Layth.

He said: and with whom did he study?

I said: with Ibn Sourayj.

He said: and did Ibn Sourayj take knowledge but from borrowed books?

A man said: this Abou al-Layth is forsaken at Chach: for the town is Hanbali.

Ibn Khuzayma said: and was Ibn Hanbal but a boy among the boys of ach-Chafii.

Zakariyya as-Saji: I said to Abou Dawoud: who are the companions of ach-Chafii?

He said: their first: al-Houmaydi, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and al-Bouwayti.

And it is narrated, by two routes, from ach-Chafii, who said:

"when I see a man of the people

of hadith, it is as if I see a man of the companions of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: Allah reward them well: they preserved for us the original: to them therefore the merit over us."

Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Mounaqib informed us, from Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ghanim: Abou Moussa al-Madini informed us: Abou Ali al-Haddad informed us: Abou Sa'id as-Samman informed us: Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmoud at Toustar informed us: al-Hasan ibn Ahmad ibn al-Moubarak narrated to us: Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal narrated to us: my father narrated to me: Soulayman ibn Dawoud al-Hashimi narrated to us: ach-Chafii narrated to us, from Yahya ibn Soulaym, from Oubaydallah, from Nafi, from Ibn Omar:

that the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, prayed the eclipse prayer four bowings, and four prostrations.

The hafiz Abou Sa'id an-Naqqach narrated it: Ali ibn al-Fadl narrated to us: Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ziyad narrated to us: the son of the imam Ahmad narrated to us ..., and he mentions the like.

And informed us Abou Ali al-Qalanisi: Ja'far informed us: as-Silafi informed us: Ismail ibn Malik informed us: Abou Ya'la al-Khalili informed us: al-Houssayn ibn Abd ar-Razzaq narrated to us: Ali ibn Ibrahim ibn Salama al-Qazwini narrated to us: Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal narrated to us ..., and he mentions it in like terms.

Youssouf ibn Zaki the hafiz informed us in the year four and ninety, informed us

al-Moussallam ibn Muhammad al-Qaysi, and Ali ibn Ahmad (I say: and the two named granted me license), and Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad the faqih, that Hanbal ibn Abdallah informed them: Hiba Allah ibn Muhammad informed us: Abou Ali ibn al-Moudhhab informed us: Ahmad ibn Ja'far the Maliki informed us: Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal informed us: my father narrated to me: Muhammad ibn Idris ach-Chafii narrated to us: Malik informed us, from Nafi, from Ibn Omar:

that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: let none of you sell over the sale of another; and he forbade the najash, and forbade selling the fetus in the belly of the carrying one, and forbade the mouzabana.

And the mouzabana: selling fruit for dates by measure, and selling the vine for raisins by measure.

This hadith is authentic, agreed upon; and some of the imams divide it, and make it four hadiths: and these four sales are forbidden, and the last two of them invalid.

Informed us Abou al-Houssayn Ali ibn Muhammad the faqih, Muhammad ibn Abi al-Izz the draper, and Sitt al-Wouzara daughter of the qadi Omar ibn As'ad, by audition, who said:

Abou Abdallah al-Houssayn ibn al-Moubarak al-Yamani informed us (h).

And informed us Ahmad ibn Abd al-Moun'im al-Qazwini: Muhammad ibn Sa'id the sufi informed us, at Bagdad, and said:

Tahir ibn Muhammad

al-Maqdisi informed us: Makki ibn Mansour al-Karji informed us (h).

And informed us Ahmad ibn Salama and others, from Ahmad ibn Muhammad at-Taymi: that Abd al-Ghaffar ibn Muhammad the merchant granted them license, the two said:

Abou Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Hasan the qadi informed us: Abou al-Abbas Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub informed us: ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman al-Mouradi informed us: Muhammad ibn Idris informed us: Mouslim ibn Khalid informed us, from Ibn Jurayj, from Ata:

that the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said to Aisha: your going round the house, and between as-Safa and al-Marwa, suffices you for your pilgrimage and your lesser pilgrimage.

And upon it ach-Chafii said: and Ibn Ouyayna informed us, from Ibn Najih, from Ata, from Aisha, from the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, the like; and at times Ata reported it with an omitted companion.

This hadith has a sound chain.

Abou Dawoud reported it, from ar-Rabi.

I read before Abd al-Mou'min ibn Khalaf the hafiz, and before Abou al-Houssayn ibn al-Faqih: the hafiz informed us both: Abou Muhammad Abd al-Azim ibn Abd al-Qawi al-Moundhiri: Ali ibn al-Moufaddal the hafiz informed us from my memorization: the sheikh of Islam Abou Tahir as-Silafi narrated to me word for word: the imam Abou al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad at-Tabari al-Ilkya narrated to me from his word, at Bagdad: the imam of the two sanctuaries Abou al-Ma'ali Abd al-Malik ibn Abdallah ibn Youssouf al-Jouwayni informed us: my father Abou Muhammad the faqih informed us: and informed us Ahmad ibn Abd al-Moun'im al-Qazwini: Muhammad ibn al-Khazin informed us (h).

And informed us Ibn al-Faqih, and Ibn Moucharrif, and Ouzayra, who said: Abou Abdallah ibn az-Zoubaydi informed us, the two said:

Abou Zur'a Tahir ibn Muhammad al-Maqdisi informed us: Makki ibn Allan informed us: both: the qadi Abou Bakr

al-Jizi informed us: Abou al-Abbas al-Asamm narrated to us: ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman narrated to us: ach-Chafii narrated to us, from Malik, from Nafi, from Ibn Omar:

that the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: the two contracting parties, each of the two has over his companion the option, so long as they separate not, except the sale of option.

Al-Boukhari reported it, from Ibn Youssouf; and Mouslim, from Yahya ibn Yahya; and Abou Dawoud, from al-Qa'nabi, all, from Malik: and it is chained in our first route by the fuqaha to its end.

And informed us, with a high chain, by reading, Ahmad ibn Hiba Allah ibn Taj al-Oumana, from al-Mou'ayyad ibn Muhammad at-Tousi: Hiba Allah ibn Sahl informed us: Abou Outhman Sa'id ibn Muhammad informed us: Zahir ibn Ahmad the faqih informed us: Ibrahim ibn Abd as-Samad informed us: Abou Moss'ab az-Zouhri narrated to us: Malik ibn Anas narrated to us.

And informed us of it, at Baalbek, Abou Muhammad Abd al-Khaliq ibn Abd as-Salam: Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ibrahim informed us: Chouhda bint

Ahmad the scribe informed us: Ahmad ibn Abd al-Qadir informed us (h).

And informed us at Alep Soungour ibn Abdallah: Abd al-Latif ibn Youssouf informed us: Yahya ibn Thabit ibn Boundar the grain merchant informed us: my father informed us, the two said:

Outhman ibn Doust the miller informed us: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Bazzaz informed us: Ishaq ibn al-Hasan al-Harbi narrated to us: Abdallah ibn Maslama informed us: Malik informed us, from Nafi, from Ibn Omar:

that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: the two contracting parties, each of the two has the option, so long as they separate not, except the sale of option.

And upon it, to al-Qa'nabi: Malik said: this has with us no known form, nor practiced matter.

I say: most of the imams acted upon its requirement, the first of them Abdallah ibn Omar, narrator of the hadith: and Allah knows best.

Informed us, by my reading before him, Abou al-Ma'ali Ahmad ibn Ishaq al-Hamadhani: informed us Abou al-Barakat al-Hasan ibn Muhammad in the year twenty and six hundred: Muhammad ibn Khalil al-Qaysi informed us.

And informed us Abou Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ali as-Soulami, and Ahmad ibn Abd ar-Rahman as-Souri, the two said:

Abou al-Qasim ibn Sassra informed us: Abou al-Qasim al-Houssayn ibn al-Hasan al-Asadi informed us, and Abou Ya'la Hamza ibn Ali ath-Tha'labi.

And informed us Ali ibn Muhammad

the hafiz, and Omar ibn Abd al-Moun'im at-Ta'i, and Abd al-Moun'im ibn Abd al-Latif, and Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Farsi, and others, who said: the qadi Abou Nasr Muhammad ibn Hiba Allah ach-Chafii informed us.

And informed us al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn al-Jawhari, and Khadija bint Youssouf the preacher, the two said:

Moukram ibn Muhammad ibn Abi as-Saqr informed us, and informed us Abou Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ahmad ibn al-Qawwas, and his cousin Abou Hafs Omar ibn Abd al-Moun'im, and the qadi Taqi ad-Din Soulayman ibn Abi Omar, and at-Taqi ibn Mou'min, and Fatima bint Soulayman, and Abou Ali ibn Khallal, and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Ourmawi, and Sitt al-Fakhr bint Abd ar-Rahman, who said:

Karima bint Abd al-Wahhab the Qurashiyya, Mother of al-Fadl, narrated to us, said the three:

Abou Ya'la ibn al-Houboubi informed us, said he and Ibn Khalil and al-Asadi:

Abou al-Qasim Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abi al-Ala al-Massisisi informed us by reading before him: Abou Muhammad Abd ar-Rahman ibn Outhman ibn al-Qasim ibn Abi Nasr at-Tamimi informed us, in the year eight and ten and four hundred: Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Thabit informed us, in the year six and thirty and three hundred: ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman narrated to us: Muhammad ibn Idris ach-Chafii narrated to us: Ibn Ouyayna narrated to us, from Jamil and Abd al-Malik, who heard Abou Wa'il informing from Abdallah ibn Mas'oud:

from the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, who said: whoever swears an oath by which he cuts off the wealth of a Muslim man shall meet Allah on the Day of Resurrection while He is angry with him.

It was said: O Messenger of Allah, though it be something little?

He said: though it be a stick of arak.

Informed us Abou al-Houssayn Yahya ibn Ahmad al-Joudhami, and Ali ibn Ahmad al-Houssayni, and Muhammad ibn al-Houssayn al-Qourachi, by my reading, who said:

Muhammad ibn Imad informed us: Abdallah ibn Rifa'a informed us: Abou al-Hasan al-Khila'i informed us: Abd ar-Rahman ibn Omar al-Maliki informed us: Abou at-Tahir Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Madini informed us: Younous ibn Abd al-A'la narrated to us, from ach-Chafii, from Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Janadi, from Aban ibn Salih, from al-Hasan, from Anas:

from the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, who said: the affair increases but in hardship; and this world turns but its back; and people grow but niggardly; and the Hour shall not stand but upon the worst of people; and there shall be no mahdi but Issa son of Maryam.

Ibn Majah reported it from Younous: we concurred with him, and it is an munkar report: Younous ibn Abd al-A'la as-Sadafi, one of the trustworthy, alone narrated it: but I do not think he heard it from ach-Chafii: rather an unknown reporter informed him of it, not relied upon: and it came in some of its established routes from Younous that he said: I was told from ach-Chafii, and he mentions it.

Informed us al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Qalanisi: Abdallah ibn Omar informed us: Abd al-Awwal ibn Isa informed us: Abou Ismail Abdallah ibn Muhammad the hafiz informed us: Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Jaroudi informed us: Abou Ishaq al-Qarrab informed us: Abou Yahya as-Saji informed us: Abou Dawoud as-Sijzi narrated to us: Ahmad ibn Hanbal narrated to us: ach-Chafii narrated to us: Malik narrated to us, from Ibn Ajlan, from his father, who said: when the scholar grows heedless (I know not) his watchers are struck.

Most of this chain is chained by the memorizers, from Abou Ismail to Ajlan, may Allah have mercy on him.

And upon it, to Abou Ismail, who said: Ismail ibn Ibrahim informed us: Muhammad ibn Abdallah informed us: Abou al-Walid Hassan ibn Muhammad the faqih informed us: Ibrahim ibn Muhammad the Kufan narrated to us (and he was of the greats of Islam in a station): I saw ach-Chafii at Mecca giving fatwas to the people, and I saw Ahmad and Ishaq present.

Ach-Chafii said: the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: and has he left us an Aqil of house?

Ishaq said: Yazid narrated to us, from al-Hasan; and informed us Abou Nou'aym and Abida, from Soufyan, from Mansour, from Ibrahim: that the two did not see him; and Ata, and Tawous, did not see him.

Ach-Chafii said: who is this?

It was said: Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Hanzali, son of Rahawayh.

Ach-Chafii said: you, whom the people of Khorassan claim is their faqih: I had need that another were in

your place, I would order his ears dragged: I would say: the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said, and you say: Ata, and Tawous, and Mansour, from Ibrahim and al-Hasan: and has anyone a proof against the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him?!

And upon it, to Abou Ismail, who said: Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Abdallah the faqih dictated to us: I heard in Merv Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Faracha the faqih: I heard Ahmad ibn Mansour ach-Chirazi: I heard al-Hasan ibn Muhammad at-Tabari: I heard Muhammad ibn al-Moughira: I heard Younous ibn Abd al-A'la: I heard ach-Chafii; and Omar ibn Muhammad dictated to us: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan as-Sawi informed us, at Merv: Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Marwazi narrated to us: Ali ibn Muhammad al-Marwazi narrated to us: Abou al-Fadl Salih ibn Muhammad ar-Razi narrated to us: I heard al-Bouwayti: I heard ach-Chafii say: when I see a man of the people of hadith, it is as if I see a man of the companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

Al-Bouwayti added: ach-Chafii said: Allah reward them well: they preserved for us the original: to them therefore merit over us.

And upon it: Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Jaroudi informed us: Abou Ishaq al-Qarrab informed us: Abou Yahya as-Saji informed us, from al-Bouwayti: I heard ach-Chafii say: hold you to the people of hadith: for they are the people most correct.

And it is narrated from ach-Chafii: were it not for the inkwells, heresy would preach upon the pulpits.

Al-Asamm: ar-Rabi narrated to us: ach-Chafii said: innovations of affairs are of two kinds: an innovation that contradicts a book, or a sunna, or a tradition, or a consensus: this innovation is misguidance; and an innovated thing of good with no contradiction therein to any of this: this is an innovation not dispraised: Omar said of the standing of ramadan: what a good innovation is this: meaning that it is an innovated thing that was not; and since it was, there is in it no rebuttal of what preceded.

Al-Bayhaqi narrated it, from as-Sadafi, from al-Asamm.

Ahmad ibn Salama an-Naysabouri said: Ishaq ibn Rahawayh married the wife of a man, with whom were the books of ach-Chafii, who died: he married her only for the books.

He said: he therefore laid "Jami al-Kabir" upon the book of ach-Chafii, and laid "Jami as-Saghir" upon the "Jami of Soufyan": Abou Ismail at-Tirmidhi came to Naysabour, and the books of ach-Chafii were with him, from al-Bouwayti: Ishaq said to him: narrate not with the books of ach-Chafii while I am here: he answered him.

Dawoud ibn Ali said: I heard Ibn Rahawayh say: I knew not that ach-Chafii was in this place: had I known I would not have parted from him.

Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Bouchanji said: Ishaq said: I said to ach-Chafii: what is the state of Ja'far ibn Muhammad with you?

He said: trustworthy: we wrote from Ibrahim ibn Abi Yahya from him four hundred hadiths.

Younous ibn Abd al-A'la said: I heard ach-Chafii say: I never saw more of a faqih than Soufyan ibn Ouyayna, nor more reticent of fatwa than he.

Abou ach-Cheikh the hafiz and others reported from another face: that when ach-Chafii entered Egypt, most of the companions of Malik came to him and turned to him: when they saw him contradicting Malik and demolishing him, they shunned him and disowned him: he began therefore saying:

"Shall I scatter pearls among the tent-dwellers tending ostriches / and gather the scattered for the shepherdess of sheep

By my life, if I be wasted in the worst of towns / I lose not among them the choicest of wisdoms

If Allah the Subtle, by His kindness, relieves / and I meet people worthy of the sciences and the wisdoms

I shall expound instructing, and enjoy their love / else, stored with me and sealed

Whoever grants knowledge to fools loses it / and whoever withholds it from the deserving has wronged

And who conceals the knowledge of religion from him who desires it / returns bearing a sin increasing, sinful if he conceals"

Abou Abdallah ibn Mandah said: I was told from ar-Rabi, who said: I saw Achhab ibn Abd al-Aziz prostrate, saying in his prostration: O Allah, make ach-Chafii die: the knowledge of Malik must not go: it reached ach-Chafii, who began saying:

"Men wished that I die; and if I die / that is a path in which I am not alone

Say then to him who seeks contradiction of him who passed / ready yourself for another like it, as if it were

And they knew: were knowledge to profit them / that if I die, none summons me to eternity"

Al-Moubarrad said: a man entered upon ach-Chafii and said: the companions of Abou Hanifa are eloquent indeed: he began therefore saying:

"But for poetry, which debases the scholars / I would today be hairier than Labid

And braver in battle than every lion / and the people of Muhallab and Abou Yazid

And but for fear of the Merciful, my Lord / I would have thought all people my slaves"

And to Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Bouchanji, of ach-Chafii:

"And among the branches of faith is love of the son of Chafi / and a firm ordinance is his love: not voluntary

And ach-Chafii is my life: if I die / my bequest after me is that they seek his intercession"

The imam Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ghanim said in the book "Merits of ach-Chafii" he composed, and it is bound: I gathered the divan of the poetry of ach-Chafii in one book.

Then he unrolled, with a chain of his, to Tha'lab, who said: ach-Chafii is an imam in language.

The hafiz Abou Nou'aym ibn Adi said: I heard ar-Rabi many a time say: were

you to see ach-Chafii, the beauty of his exposition and his eloquence, you would marvel: and had he composed these books upon the Arabic he spoke with us in debate, we could not have read his books, for its eloquence and the strangeness of its expressions: except that he, in his composing, made clear for the common folk.

Harmala: I heard ach-Chafii say: people never became ignorant nor differed but for their abandoning the tongue of the Arabs, and their inclining to the tongue of Aristotle.

This account is useful: but it is munkar: I do not believe the imam uttered it: nor were the works of Aristotle arabized after that at all.

Abou al-Hasan Ali ibn Mahdi the faqih narrated it: Muhammad ibn Haroun narrated to us: Houmaym ibn Hammam narrated to us: Harmala narrated to us.

Ibn Haroun: unknown.

Mouss'ab ibn Abdallah said: I never saw one more knowing than ach-Chafii of the days of people.

And the imam Ibn Sourayj transmitted from some genealogists, who said: ach-Chafii was among the most knowing of people in genealogies: they gathered with him one night, and he disputed them in the genealogies of women until morning, and said: the genealogies of men everyone knows.

Al-Hasan ibn Rachiq: Ahmad ibn Ali al-Madini informed us, who said: al-Mouzani said: ach-Chafii came to us: Ibn Hicham, the author of the Maghazi, came to him: he disputed him in the genealogies of men.

Ach-Chafii said to him: leave the genealogies of men: they will not

leave us nor you: and tell us of the genealogies of women: when they took to it, Ibn Hicham fell behind.

Younous as-Sadafi said: when ach-Chafii took to the days of the people, I said: this is his craft.

And from ach-Chafii, who said: I intended by it (meaning Arabic and the reports) only to be aided upon fiqh.

Abou Hatim said: Younous ibn Abd al-A'la narrated to us, and said: I never saw one who bore of illness what ach-Chafii bore: I entered upon him, and he said: read what follows the hundred and twentieth of Al Imran: I read therefore: when I stood, he said: neglect me not: for I am distressed.

Younous said: by my reading he meant what the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and his companions bore, or the like.

Ibn Khuzayma and others: al-Mouzani narrated to us, and said:

"I entered upon ach-Chafii in the illness wherein he died, and I said: O Abou Abdallah, how have you woken?

He raised his head, and said: I woke departing the world, parting from my brothers, meeting the evil of my deed, and arriving at Allah: I know not whether my soul goes to a Garden that I congratulate it,

or to a Fire that I console it. Then he wept and began saying:

And when my heart hardened and my ways straitened / I made my hope, before Your pardon, a ladder

My sin loomed great; when I coupled it / to Your pardon, my Lord, Your pardon was greater

You never cease forgiving sin, never ceasing / to give generously and pardon, in grace and munificence

Should You avenge Yourself of me I despair not / though my soul enter with my crime into Hellfire

And but for You none would be led astray by Iblis, a worshipper / how then, when Your chosen Adam was led astray

And I do come to sin, knowing its measure / and knowing that Allah pardons, in mercy"

Its chain is established from him.

His illness and his death

Abou al-Abbas al-Asamm said: ar-Rabi ibn Soulayman narrated to us: I entered upon ach-Chafii while ill: he asked me of our companions.

I said: they speak.

He said: I never debated anyone for victory: and I would that all creation learn this book (meaning his books), without anything of it being attributed to me.

He said it on Sunday, and died on Thursday: and we returned from his funeral on Friday night, and saw the crescent of cha'ban in the year four and two hundred: and he was nineteen and fifty years.

Ibn Abi Hatim: Abou Muhammad as-Sijistani, residing at Mecca, wrote me: al-Harith ibn Sourayj narrated to me, and said: I entered with ach-Chafii upon the servant of ar-Rachid, who was in a house spread with brocade: when he saw him he turned back.

The servant said to him: enter.

He said: it is not lawful to tread upon the forbidden.

The servant rose therefore smiling

until he entered a house spread with Armenian: ach-Chafii entered: then he turned to him, and said: this is lawful, and that unlawful: and this one finer than that, and more of price.

The servant smiled therefore and was silent.

And from ar-Rabi, of ach-Chafii:

"My soul awakened yearning toward Egypt / and besides her, the land of toils and desert

By Allah, I know not: to wealth and riches / do I drive toward her, or do I drive toward my grave"

Al-Maymouni said: I heard Ahmad say: I asked ach-Chafii of analogy, and he said: at necessities.

Informed us Abou Ali ibn Khallal: Ibn al-Latti informed us: Abou al-Waqt informed us: Abou Ismail al-Ansari informed us: Muhammad ibn Moussa informed us: Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub narrated to us: I heard ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say: when you find

in my book a contradiction to the sunna of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, say the sunna of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and leave what I said.

We heard a part in the journey of ach-Chafii: I reported nothing of it: for it is false to whoever examines it: and likewise were attributed to him sayings and foundations that were not established from him: and the narration of Ibn Abd al-Hakam from him concerning the rubbing of women is munkar: and his texts in his works are against that.

And likewise the bequest of ach-Chafii, according to the narration of al-Houssayn ibn Hicham al-Baladi, is not authentic.

And the sheikh of Islam Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Youssouf al-Hakkari said in his book "the creed of ach-Chafii": informed us Abou Ya'la al-Khalil ibn Abdallah the hafiz: informed us Abou al-Qasim ibn Alqama al-Abhari: Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Hatim narrated to us: Younous ibn Abd al-A'la informed us: I heard Abou Abdallah ach-Chafii say (and he was asked of the attributes of Allah, the Most High, and what is believed in) and he said: "Allah has names and attributes, come by His book, and His prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, informed his community of them: none can, against whom the proof has risen, reject them: for the Quran came with them, and was authenticated the word of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in them: whoever contradicts

that after the proof is established upon him is a disbeliever: as for before the establishment of the proof, he is excused by ignorance: for the knowledge of that is seized neither by intellect, nor by report and reflection: and we declare none disbeliever by ignorance of them, except after the report reaches him of them: and we establish these attributes, and negate from them resemblance, as he negated it from Himself, and He said: {Naught is as His likeness: He is the Hearing, the Seeing} (sourate ach-Choura, verse 11).

Mouss'ab ibn Abdallah said: ach-Chafii stayed up with my father until morning.

And al-Moubarrad said: ach-Chafii was among the most poetic of people, the most cultured of people, and the most knowing of them of the readings.

And among the merits of this imam: the word of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: the Banu Hashim and the Banu al-Mouttalib are one thing: they never parted from us, neither in the Jahiliya nor in Islam. Al-Boukhari reported it.

Yahya al-Qattan said: of what al-Bayhaqi transmitted in "his Madkhal": "I never saw more intelligent (or he said: more of a faqih) than ach-Chafii, and I invoke Allah for him, singling him out with it."

And al-Hakim said: az-Zoubayr ibn Abd al-Wahid narrated to us: al-Abbas ibn al-Fadl narrated to me at Oursoof: Muhammad ibn Awf narrated to us: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal say: ach-Chafii is a philosopher in four things: in language, the divergence of people, meanings, and fiqh.

Ibrahim al-Harbi said: I asked Ahmad of ach-Chafii, and he said: an authentic hadith, and an authentic opinion.

And I asked him of Malik, and he mentions the account.

Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Oubayda: Younous ibn Abd al-A'la narrated to us, who said: when ach-Chafii took to interpretation, it was as if he witnessed the sending down.

Al-Bayhaqi said, in what Ibn Allan and Fatima bint Asakir granted us license of, from Mansour

al-Firawi: Abou al-Ma'ali al-Farisi informed us: Abou Bakr al-Bayhaqi informed us: Abou Abd ar-Rahman as-Soulami informed us: Muhammad ibn al-Abbas al-Ousmi narrated to us: Abou Ishaq ibn Yasin al-Harawi narrated to us: Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Ansari narrated to us: I heard al-Marroudhi say:

Ahmad ibn Hanbal said: "when I am asked a question wherein I know no report, I answer it with the word of ach-Chafii: for he is an imam Qurashi: and it was narrated from the: Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, that he said: a scholar of Quraysh shall fill the earth with knowledge, until Ahmad said: and indeed I invoke for ach-Chafii since forty years in my prayer."

Narrated Abou Dawoud at-Tayalisi, and Ishaq ibn Israil: Ja'far ibn Soulayman narrated to us, from Abou al-Jaroud an-Nadr ibn Houmayd: from Abou al-Jaroud, from Abou al-Ahwass, from Abdallah:

the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: "revile not Quraysh: for its scholar shall fill the earth with knowledge."

I say: an-Nadr: Abou Hatim said of him: abandoned in hadith.

Abou Bakr ibn Ziyad an-Naysabouri said: I heard ar-Rabi say: ach-Chafii completed the Quran every ramadan sixty completions, and every month thirty completions, and he narrated hadith while a bladder was beneath him: he said therefore one day: O Allah, if there is with You in it pleasure, increase it.

Idris ibn Yahya al-Ma'afiri (meaning: the ascetic of Egypt) sent to him therefore: you are not of the men of trial: ask Allah then for well-being.

Az-Zoubayr ibn Abd al-Wahid: Muhammad ibn Aqil al-Firyabi narrated to us, who said: al-Mouzani, or ar-Rabi, said: we were one day at ach-Chafii when an elder wearing woolen garments came, a staff in his hand: ach-Chafii rose and smoothed his garments for him: the elder greeted and sat, and ach-Chafii began looking at the elder in reverence, when the elder said: I question?

He said: question.

He said: what is the proof in the religion of Allah?

He said: the Book of Allah.

He said: and what?

He said: the sunna of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

He said: and what?

He said: the agreement of the community.

He said: from where do you say: the agreement of the community?

Ach-Chafii reflected therefore an hour, and the elder said: I have granted you three days: if you bring a proof from the Book of Allah, else repent to Allah, the Most High.

The color of ach-Chafii changed therefore: then he went and went not out until the third day, between dhouhr and al-asr, and his face was swollen, and his hands, and his legs, and he was sick: he sat, and he was not

swifter than that the elder came: he greeted and sat, and said: my need.

Ach-Chafii said: yes, I seek refuge in Allah from the stoned devil: Allah the Most High said: {And whoever opposes the Messenger after the guidance has become clear to him, and follows other than the way of the believers, We turn him to what he has turned...}, the verse, sourate an-Nisa, verse 115.

He said: he prays not therefore upon opposing the believers except that it is an obligation.

He said: you have spoken true: and he rose and went.

Ach-Chafii said: I read the Quran every day and night three times until I stood upon it.

I was informed of this account, from Mansour al-Firawi: Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Farisi informed us: Abou Bakr al-Bayhaqi informed us: Abou Abdallah the hafiz informed us: az-Zoubayr narrated to us, and he mentions it.

Az-Za'farani said: ach-Chafii came to us at Bagdad in the year five and ninety: he stayed with us a month, then went out.

And he dyed with henna, and he was light of the two temples.

And Ahmad ibn Sinan said: I saw him red of head and beard (meaning: that he dyed).

At-Tabarani said: I heard Abou Yazid al-Qaratisi say: I attended the funeral of Ibn Wahb, and attended the session of ach-Chafii.

Abou Nou'aym in "the Hilya": Oubayd ibn Khalif the draper narrated to us: Ishaq ibn Abd ar-Rahman narrated to me: I heard Hassan al-Karabisi: I heard ach-Chafii say: "I was a young man writing poetry: I came to the Bedouins and heard from them: I came to Mecca: I went out reciting poetry of Labid, striking wildly my two feet with the whip: a man from behind me, of the guard, struck me, and said: a man of Quraysh, then son of al-Mouttalib, is content with his religion and his world to be a teacher: what is poetry, when you harden in it, that you return a teacher? Study fiqh: may Allah mend you."

Allah profited me by his word: I wrote what Allah willed of Ibn Ouyayna, then I kept company with Mouslim ibn Khalid: then I came to Malik: when I presented to him up to the book of the campaigns he said to me: study fiqh: may Allah illumine you, O son of my brother.

I came therefore to Mouss'ab ibn Abdallah, and spoke to him that he speak for me to some of our people, that he give me something: for there was in me of poverty and need what Allah knows best. Mouss'ab said to me:

"you came to so-and-so and spoke to him."

He said: "do you speak to me of a man who was of us then differed from us?"

He said: he gave me therefore a hundred dinars.

Then Mouss'ab said to me: ar-Rachid wrote to me that I go to the Yaman as qadi: go out therefore with us: perhaps Allah will compensate you.

I went out therefore with him, and we kept company with the people: Moutarrif ibn Mazin wrote to ar-Rachid: if you wish the Yaman corrupt not upon you, nor let it leave your hand: expel therefore from it Muhammad ibn Idris: and he mentioned people of the Talibites: he sent therefore to Hammad al-Barbari, and I was bound in iron, until we reached Haroun at ar-Raqqa: I was brought in to him ..., and he mentions his meeting thereafter with Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, and his debate with him.

Al-Houmaydi said: from ach-Chafii, who said: "our abode at Mecca was in the ravine of al-Khayf: I would look at a bone gleaming, and write upon it the hadith, or the question: and we had an old jar: when the bone filled I cast it into the jar."

Amr ibn Outhman the Meccan said: from az-Za'farani, from Yahya ibn Ma'in: I heard Yahya ibn Sa'id say: it is I who invoke Allah for ach-Chafii in my prayer since four years.

Ibn Majah al-Qazwini said: Yahya ibn Ma'in came to Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and while he was with him, ach-Chafii passed by his mule: Ahmad leapt greeting him, and followed him and was slow, and Yahya sitting: when he came Yahya said: O Abou Abdallah,

how much is this one?

He said: leave yourself this: if you wish fiqh hold to the tail of the mule.

Ahmad ibn al-Abbas an-Nasa'i said: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal say what I cannot count: Abou Abdallah ach-Chafii said; then he said: I never saw one more follower of the tradition than ach-Chafii.

Abou Hatim: Younous narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: "I debated one day Muhammad ibn al-Hasan: my debating him grew hard: his two cheeks began swelling, and his buttons breaking, one by one."

And from ach-Chafii, who said: I was named at Bagdad defender of hadith.

And Younous said: I heard ach-Chafii say: none escaped me who was harder upon me than al-Layth and Ibn Abi Dhi'b: and al-Layth is more follower of the tradition than Malik.

Informed us, by license, Ahmad ibn Salama, from Mas'oud the camel-driver: Abou Ali al-Haddad informed us: Abou Nou'aym informed us: Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn Sahl narrated to us: Hassan ibn Aban the qadi narrated to me, in Egypt: Jamil ibn al-Qasim al-Balkhi narrated to me: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Yazid ibn Hakim al-Moustamli narrated to me, and said: I saw ach-Chafii in the sacred mosque, upon which platforms were set: he sat upon them: a man of the people of Khorassan came to him and said: O Abou Abdallah, what do you say of eating the young of the hornet?

He said: forbidden.

He said: forbidden?!

He said: yes: from the Book of Allah, and the sunna of the Messenger of Allah, and the rational:

I seek refuge in Allah the Hearing the Knowing from the stoned devil: {And whatever the Messenger gives you, take it: and whatever he forbids you, abstain from it} (sourate al-Hashr, verse 7).

And Soufyan narrated to us, from Za'ida, from Abd al-Malik ibn Oumayr, from the mawla of Ribi'i, from Houdayfa:

that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: take as example the two after me: Abou Bakr and Omar.

This is the Book, and the Sunna.

And they narrated to us from Israil: Abou Bakr al-Moustamli said: Abou Ahmad narrated to us, from Israil, from Ibrahim ibn Abd al-A'la, from Souwayd ibn Ghafala:

that Omar commanded the killing of the hornet.

And in the rational: that what was commanded to be killed, its eating is forbidden.

And Abou Nou'aym said: al-Hasan ibn Sa'id narrated to us: Zakariyya as-Saji narrated to us: I heard al-Bouwayti: I heard ach-Chafii say: Allah created creation by "be": if then "be" were created, it would be as a created created by a created.

Ar-Rabi: I heard ach-Chafii say: I never saw one bearing more false witness than the Rafidites.

And he said: in this affair reaches not a man until poverty harms him, and he prefers it over everything.

And Younous ibn Abd al-A'la said: I heard ach-Chafii say: O Younous, contracting from people is an earning of enmity, and expanding toward them a summons to evil companions: be then between the contracted and the expanded.

And he said to me: the pleasure of people is a goal not attained, and there is no way to safety from them: hold you then to what profits you, and keep to it.

And from ach-Chafii: knowledge is what benefited: knowledge is not what was memorized.

And from him: the intelligent, the sensible, is the perceptive feigning heedlessness.

And from him: had I known that cold water lessens my manliness I would not have drunk it.

Abou Nou'aym: Ibn al-Muqri narrated to us: I heard Youssouf ibn Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Marwazi say: from Omar ibn Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hakam, from his father: I heard ach-Chafii say:

"while I was turning in quest of knowledge, I entered the Yaman: it was said to me: in it, in its middle toward its lower part, is the body of a man and the body of a woman, and from its middle upward two separate bodies, with four hands, and two heads, and two faces: I wished therefore to look at her: I did not make lawful until I had asked her of her father: I entered therefore: and she was as I was told: and there was between me and the two a pact, the two of them fighting, biting, reconciling, and eating: then I descended from her, and was absent from that land (I think he said: two years): then I returned: it was said to me: may Allah comfort you well for the single body: he died: they attended to him: he was bound from below with a rope, and left until he dried: then he was cut and buried."

Ach-Chafii said: and there was between me and the single body a pact in the market, going and coming, or the like.

This account is strange, munkar: and in its chain one who is unknown.

And from ach-Chafii, who said: nothing lessened of the worth of the blacks but the weakness of their intellects: else it is a color of colors.

Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Asbahani: ar-Rabi narrated to us, and said: ach-Chafii completed in ramadan sixty completions.

Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ach-Chafii said: I never saw one praying more beautifully than ach-Chafii: and that is because he took from Mouslim ibn Khalid, and Mouslim took from Ibn Jurayj, and Ibn Jurayj took from Ata, and Ata took from Ibn az-Zoubayr, and Ibn az-Zoubayr took from Abou Bakr as-Siddiq, and Abou Bakr took from the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

And from ach-Chafii, who said: I saw in the Yaman girls of nine having much menstruation.

Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hakam said: I heard ach-Chafii say: they say: the water of Iraq, and nothing in the world like the water of Egypt for men: I came indeed to Egypt while like the eunuch: I stir not.

He said: he left not Egypt before one was born to him.

Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Jannad: al-Hasan ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Jarawi narrated to us: I heard ach-Chafii say: I left at Bagdad a thing the heretics invented, which they name the taghbir: they busy themselves with it away from the Quran.

From ach-Chafii: fat never prospered, except Muhammad ibn al-Hasan.

He was told: and why?

He said: because the sensible ceases not to be between two states: either he grieves for his Hereafter, or for his world: and fat with sorrow does not set.

Informed us, in the year two and ninety and after it, Ismail ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn Amr al-Mou'addal: informed us al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn al-Houssayn al-Asadi: informed us my grandfather Abou al-Qasim al-Houssayn ibn al-Hasan: informed us Abou al-Qasim Ali ibn Muhammad the faqih: informed us Muhammad ibn al-Fadl ibn Nadhif al-Farra, in Egypt, in the year nine and ten and four hundred: Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Houssayn as-Sabouni narrated to us, in the year eight and forty and three hundred: al-Mouzani narrated to us: ach-Chafii narrated to us, from Malik, from Nafi, from Abdallah:

that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, forbade the wisal.

It was said: is it you who do the wisal?

He said: I am not as you: I am fed and watered.

I say: the word of contemporaries, when it is demonstrated to us that it is of passion and partisanship, is not turned to: rather it is folded, and not narrated: as was established of al-Kaffi concerning much of what arose between the Companions and their fighting, may Allah be pleased with them all: and that ceased not passing before us in the registers, the books and the parts: but most of that is discontinuous and weak, and part of it lie: and this is in what is between our hands and among our scholars: it befits therefore its folding and its hiding, nay its deletion, that hearts be pure, and that one hold to love of the Companions and being content with them, and the concealing of that from the common folk and the isolated scholars: and reading of that is permitted in private to the equitable scholar, free of passion, on condition that he seek forgiveness for them, as Allah, the Most High, taught us

where He says: {And those who came after them say: our Lord, forgive us and our brothers who preceded us in faith, and set not in our hearts rancor against those who believed} (sourate al-Hashr, verse 10).

Those people have therefore advances and deeds expiating what happened of them, a purified struggle, and a refined worship: and we are not of him who exaggerates in any one of them, nor do we claim for them inerrancy: we attest that some of them are better than some, and we attest that Abou Bakr and Omar are the best of the community.

Then the completion of the ten to whom Paradise was attested, and Hamza, and Ja'far, and Mou'adh, and Zayd, and the mothers of the believers, and the daughters of our Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and the people of Badr, despite their being upon ranks.

Then the more excellent after them, like Abou ad-Darda, Salman al-Farisi, Ibn Omar, and the rest of the people of the pact of ar-Ridwan, whom Allah was pleased with by the very text of the verse of sourate al-Fath.

Then the generality of the Emigrants and the Helpers, like Khalid ibn al-Walid, and al-Abbas, and Abdallah ibn Amr: and this rank.

Then the rest of whoever kept company with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and strove with him, or pilgrimaged with him, or heard from him, may Allah be pleased with them all: and of all the female companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, the Emigrants and the Medinans, and Oumm al-Fadl, and Oumm Hani the Hashimite, and the rest of the Companionesses.

As for what the Rafidites and the people of innovations transmit in their books of that: we incline not to it, nor honor it: for most of it is false, and lie, and fabrication: the habit of the Rafidites is narrating the false, or rejecting what is in the authentic collections and the musnads: and when is the waking of him who is drunk?!

Then people of the Taba'ites spoke, some of them against some, and they warred, and ran matters that cannot be expounded: there is therefore no profit in spreading them: and there fell in the books of histories and the books of jarh and tadil strange matters: and the intelligent is the opponent of himself: and of the excellence of the Islam

of a man is leaving what does not concern him: and the flesh of scholars is poisoned: and what was transmitted of that was to make clear the error of the scholar and the multitude of his imagining, or the weakness of his memory: it is not of this kind: but to make clear the authentic hadith from the good, and the good from the weak.

And our imam is, praise to Allah, firm in hadith, memorizer of what he retained, without error, described by mastery, sound of religion: whoever attacked him with ignorance and passion, of him known to be his rival, has wronged his soul: the scholars detested him: and his partiality appeared to every memorizer, and he dragged people by his leg: and whoever praised him, and acknowledged his imamate and mastery, they are the people of binding and loosing, ancient and modern: they attained, and beautified, and were guided and favored.

As for our imams today and our judges: when they remove what was found of passionate criticism, it may be said: they did well, and were favored: and obeying them in that is obligatory, for what they saw of cutting the material of falsehood and evil.

And in every state: the ignorant and the astray spoke of the best of the Companions, and of the established hadith: none is more patient than Allah of harm He hears: they indeed attribute to Him a son, while He provides for them and heals them.

And I paused upon some of the speech of the Maghrebis concerning the imam, may Allah have mercy on him: my profit of that was weakening the state of whoever attacked the imam: and to Allah be praise.

And no doubt that, when the imam settled in Egypt, and differed from his contemporaries of the Malikites, and enlightened some of their branches with the proofs of the Sunna, and differed from their sheikh in questions: they were pained by him, and attacked him, and there ran between them estrangement: may Allah forgive all.

And the imam Souhnoun acknowledged, and said: there was no innovation in ach-Chafii.

He spoke true therefore, by Allah: may Allah have mercy on ach-Chafii: and where is the like of ach-Chafii, and Allah, in his truth, his nobility, his acuteness, the breadth of his knowledge, his surpassing cleverness, his defense of truth, and the multitude of his merits, may Allah the Most High have mercy on him.

The hafiz Abou Bakr al-Khatib said, in the question of argumentation by the imam ach-Chafii, in what I read before Abou al-Fadl ibn Asakir, from Abd al-Aziz ibn Muhammad: Youssouf ibn Ayyoub the ascetic informed us: al-Khatib informed us, and said: some of our brothers asked me the exposition of the cause of al-Boukhari's leaving the narration from ach-Chafii in the Jami?

And he mentions that some of those who follow the opinion of Abou Hanifa weakened the hadiths of ach-Chafii, and objected by the turning away of al-Boukhari from narrating him: and were it not for what Allah took upon the scholars in what they know, to make it clear to people, the first of things would be turning away from objecting the ignorant, and leaving them grumbling.

And he mentioned to me him who is pointed to, the emptiness of the book of Mouslim and others of the hadith of ach-Chafii.

I answered him therefore with what Allah opened to me: and the like of ach-Chafii is him who was envied, and the concealing of his landmarks was aimed at: and Allah refuses but that He perfect His light, and make appear of every right its concealed: and how should he not be envied who attained perfection, for what Allah gathered for him of pure qualities that none denies but the manifest of ignorance, or lost of mind.

Then al-Khatib took to enumerating the sciences of the imam and his merits, and the magnification of the imams of him, and said:

"Allah refused but to raise him and his loftiness / and none who raises him, possessor of the Throne, is one who sets

until he said: and al-Boukhari trimmed what is in his Jami, except that he turned from many of the fundamentals, preferring brevity.

Ibrahim ibn Ma'qil said: I heard al-Boukhari say:

"I introduced into my book Jami only what is authentic, and left of the authentic because of the length."

The leaving of al-Boukhari of argumentation by ach-Chafii is only for no meaning that requires his weakness: but he dispensed with him by what is higher than him: for more ancient are the sheikhs of ach-Chafii: Malik, and ad-Darawardi, and Dawoud the druggist, and Ibn Ouyayna: and al-Boukhari did not reach ach-Chafii: rather he met him who is older than he, like Oubaydallah ibn Moussa, and Abou Asim, of those who narrated from the Taba'ites: and several narrated to him from the sheikhs of ach-Chafii: he did not see then to narrate from a man, from ach-Chafii, from Malik.

Were it said: he narrated indeed from the Musnadi one, from Mou'awiya ibn Amr, from al-Fazari, from Malik: there is no doubt al-Boukhari heard this report from the companions of Malik, and it is in the Mouvatta: this refutes you then?!

We said: he never narrated a descending hadith while with him was an ascending, except for the meaning he finds in the ascending: as for his bringing the descending while with him was the ascending, neither for a meaning specific to it, nor upon the mode of succession of part of what is differed in: this is not found in the book.

And the hadith of al-Fazari therein is the exposition of the report: and it is unique in others: and al-Fazari made it unique by explicit hearing.

Then al-Khatib unrolled that from several routes, and said: al-Boukhari follows the wordings by the report in some hadiths, and observes them: and we considered the narrations of ach-Chafii which his books include: we found not therein one hadith upon the condition of al-Boukhari with which he was stranger, nor unique in a meaning resembling what we clarified.

And such is the word in the leaving of Mouslim of him, for his reaching what al-Boukhari reached of that.

As for Abou Dawoud: he reported in his Sunan for ach-Chafii other than a hadith: and reported for him at-Tirmidhi, and Ibn Khuzayma, and Ibn Abi Hatim.

Then al-Khatib unrolled a section in the praise of his sheikhs and his contemporaries upon him: then he unrolled things in the winking of some imams: he did evil then who wished (I mean his winker).

And reached us from the imam ach-Chafii

His wisdoms

expressions that may not be established: but they are wisdoms: among them:

never prospered who sought knowledge but with little.

And from him, who said: I never lied, nor swore by Allah, nor left the ghusl of Friday, and I never ate my fill since sixteen years, except a meal I cast out of my hour.

And from him, who said: whom piety honors not, has no honor.

And from him: I never fled from poverty: seeking the surplus of the world is a punishment wherewith Allah punished the people of unity.

And it was said to him: why do you multiply holding the staff, and you are not weak?

He said: that I remember I am a traveler.

And he said: whoever keeps to passions, the servitude of the sons of the world keeps to him.

And he said: good is in five: wealth of soul, restraining harm, earning the lawful, piety, and trust in Allah.

And from him: the most beneficial of treasures is piety, and the most harmful of them aggression.

And from him: avoiding sins, and leaving what concerns you not, illuminates the heart: hold you to seclusion, and little eating: beware mixing with the fools, and him who is not fair to you: when you speak of what concerns you not, the word possesses you, and you possess it not.

And from him: were a man to bequeath a thing to the most intelligent of people, he would be directed to the ascetics.

And from him: the governing of people is harder than the governing of beasts.

And from him: the intelligent is he whose intellect keeps him from every dispraised one.

And from him: manliness has four pillars: good character, generosity, humility, and devotion.

And from him: a man becomes not complete but with four: with religion, and trustworthiness, and guarding, and gravity.

And from him: not your brother is he for whom you have need of complaisance.