is not metaphorical in any respect. Had it been figurative, reinterpretation would have become mandatory: people would have said, “The meaning of sight is such-and-such, and the meaning of hearing is such-and-such,” and the attributes would have been explained in a manner other than what first comes to mind. But because the methodology of the early generations was to affirm them without reinterpretation, it is clear that they are not to be taken figuratively; rather, they are plain, indisputable realities.

And in Abū al-Ḥasan’s poem:
Within illustrious Karaj there stands, the unrivalled of his age—
Abū Aḥmad al-Qaṣṣāb, whom none can overcome.
His books disclose the many branches of his learning;
There is no field of knowledge but that he has drunk its draft.

145 – Ghundar, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Baghdādī, the Bookseller *

The meticulous ḥadith master Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar (1), Shuʿbah’s companion— the elder Ghundar—has already been treated.

Ghundar: the Imām, ḥadith master, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Baghdādī, the bookseller.

He heard from al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Maʿmarī; Abū Bakr al-Bāghandī; Abū ʿArūbah; Abū al-Jahm al-Mashgharanī; al-Ṭaḥāwī; and many others.

Those who transmitted from him include al-Ḥākim; Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Jumayʿ; Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī; ʿUmar ibn Abī Saʿd al-Harawī; Abū Nuʿaym the ḥadith master; and a number of others.

Al-Ḥākim said, “He stayed with us for years, benefiting us. He extracted for me the ‘solitary narrations of the Khurāsānīs’ from my own collection, then he entered the land of the Turks and wrote down an amount of ḥadith beyond description for its abundance, then—”