—knowledge which none before me ever possessed, and I know about Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Muslim what the two of them never knew.’

I replied in mockery, ‘Then your knowledge must be pure inspiration!’ Thereafter I cut off relations with him. His creed was unsound: he took the reports concerning the divine attributes at their most literal. It reached me (1) that while standing in the market of Bāb al-Azaj he recited, ‘On the Day when the shin shall be laid bare’ (Q 68:42), struck his own leg, and said, ‘A shin like this shin of mine’ (2).

I was also informed that he declared, ‘The people of innovation cite as proof His saying, “There is nothing like unto Him” (Q 42:11)—that applies only to His divinity. As for form, He is just like you and me’ (3). He argued that God—Exalted be He—has said, ‘O wives of the Prophet, you are not like any other women if you are mindful of God’ (Q 33:32), meaning “in honor and sanctity.”

I once asked him about the hadiths of the divine attributes. He answered, ‘People have differed about them: some interpret them figuratively, some suspend judgment, and some accept their literal sense. My position is one of these three’ (4).

He issued legal verdicts according to the school of Dāwūd. It reached me that he was asked whether a ritual bath is obligatory for one who has intercourse without ejaculation, and he answered, ‘No ghusl is required (5); I have just done that very act with Umm Abī Bakr.’