he is a sinner; and when the case is brought before the ruler, the latter is obliged to discipline him and impose a discretionary punishment that will deter others like him. If the ruler neglects to do so while able, he himself incurs sin (1). Allah, exalted is He, knows best.
Written by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Baghdādī, servant of the Mālikī school (2) at the noble Mustanṣiriyyah Madrasa—may Allah have mercy on its founder.
Beneath his statement Imām Ṣafī al-Dīn ⦗124⦘ ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Ḥanbalī (3) wrote:
Praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may His blessings be upon our master Muḥammad and upon his pure family. What our master the Imām—the learned practitioner, gatherer of virtues (4), ocean of knowledge, source of merit, Jamāl al-Dīn, the scribe (5) whose handwriting precedes mine here—may Allah adorn Islam through him and envelop him in His abundant favours—has recorded is the manifest, evident truth. In it he has set aside the customary lenience of the shaykhs, for the question and answer that have already been presented (6) leave no doubt to anyone of insight and intellect that he has produced a perfectly appropriate reply (7).