—may Allah have mercy on him—in a dream. In his hand were several fascicles of this very book and he was saying: “Today I have written—” or, he said, “I have read—seven fascicles from the jurist Aḥmad’s work,” and he considered that a notable achievement.

He (Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad) added: On the very next morning another jurist of my Shāfiʿī brethren saw al-Shāfiʿī sitting on a raised platform in the mosque, saying, “Today I have gained from the jurist’s book the ḥadith of such-and-such.” (1)

My father also told us: I heard the jurist, ḥadith master Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Samarkandī say: I heard the jurist Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Marwazī relate: “I saw in a dream a bier rising into the sky, enveloped in light. I asked, ‘What is this?’ and it was said, ‘These are the writings of Aḥmad al-Bayhaqī.’”

The Chief Judge then said: I heard these three accounts from the three men just mentioned (2).

I say: This is a true vision. Al-Bayhaqī’s compositions are of immense stature and overflowing with benefit; few have produced works as polished as those of Imām Abū Bakr. A scholar ought therefore to devote himself to them—above all to his major Sunan. A year or more before his death he came to Nishapur; students gathered around him in large numbers, heard his books, and then conveyed them to Iraq, Syria, and the surrounding regions. The ḥadith master Abū al-Qāsim al-Dimashqī took special care of them, hearing them from al-Bayhaqī’s pupils and, together with Abū al-Ḥasan al-Murādī, bringing them to Damascus.

We have also been informed that Imām al-Ḥaramayn Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī said: “Every Shāfiʿī jurist owes a debt to al-Shāfiʿī—except Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī, for al-Shāfiʿī himself is indebted to him on account of the books he composed in defense of his school.” (3)