and, so it was widely reported, even hired himself out as a guard on a caravan route. His son later collected his poetry, and he had begun a juristic compendium entitled al-Istifāʾ, but nothing of it appeared save the Book of Purification, issued in several volumes.

He told me: When he returned from his journey to al-Andalus he found Ibn Ḥazm’s discourse attractive in style, yet the man stood outside the school, and no one in al-Andalus was engaged with his learning. The jurists’ tongues therefore fell short of refuting him, so a band of the ignorant adopted his views. He settled on the island of Mayūrqa, assumed leadership there, and its people followed him. When Abū al-Walīd arrived, they approached him about the matter; he went in to Ibn Ḥazm, debated him, and made his falsehood public. He held with him many such sessions.

He said: When Abū al-Walīd commented on the ḥadith of writing on the Day of Ḥudaybiyyah that appears in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (1), he took the text at its apparent meaning. The jurist Abū Bakr ibn al-Ṣāʾigh rejected this and pronounced him an unbeliever for allowing that the unlettered Prophet of Allah ﷺ might have written, claiming that this contradicted the Qur’an. People who did not understand the issue then spoke out, accusing him of inciting fitna, reviling before the populace what he had said, and their preachers mentioned it in the Friday sermons. One of their poets recited:

I disown the man who sells the Hereafter for this world—
who says, “Indeed, the Messenger of Allah wrote.” (2)

Hence Qāḍī Abū al-Walīd composed a Treatise in which he showed that this view does not detract from the miracle, and through it a number of people retracted their criticism.

I say: It is permissible for the Prophet ﷺ to write no more than his own name, and that would not remove him from being described as unlettered. No emir or governor who merely signs his name repeatedly as a mark is counted a scribe; judgement is based on what is prevalent, not on what is rare. The Prophet ﷺ said: “We are a community…"