—the ḥāfiẓ— informed us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Jawharī in Baghdad narrated to us; Ibrāhīm ibn al-Haytham narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Maṣṣīṣī narrated to us: I heard al-Awzāʿī say:

“In the days when we and the tābiʿūn (Successors) were many, we would declare: ‘Allah—exalted is He—is above His Throne, and we affirm every attribute that has reached us in the sunnah.’ ”

Al-Walīd ibn Mazīd said: I heard al-Awzāʿī say:

“When Allah wills evil for a people, He opens for them the door of argumentation and withholds them from acting.”

Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ reported: al-Walīd ibn Muslim narrated to us, al-Awzāʿī narrated to us; he said:

“Qatādah wrote to me from Basra: ‘Though dwellings separate us from you, the fellowship of Islam unites its people.’ ”

I (the author) say: His wording, “Qatādah wrote to me”—and in another version, “Qatādah wrote to me”—is figurative, for Qatādah was born blind; he merely instructed someone to write to al-Awzāʿī on his behalf.

A corollary of this is that the narration from the blind man is in fact transmitted through the intermediary who wrote the letter, yet that person is unnamed in the report; thus the chain contains a clear interruption.

Khaythamah ibn Sulaymān reported: al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Walīd narrated to us; I heard my father; I heard al-Awzāʿī say:

“I came to Beirut to stand guard on its frontier, and there I met Sawdāʾ near the graves. I said to her, ‘O Sawdāʾ, where is prosperity?’ She replied, ‘You are in prosperity, but if you want ruin, it lies before you.’ ”

Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn ʿAbbūd reported: Muḥammad ibn Kathīr narrated to us, from al-Awzāʿī, who said:

“A swarm (1) of locusts descended upon us in Beirut, and there was with us a man of merit who related that he saw a rider; he spoke of the immense size of the locust and of the man. He said, ‘The rider was wearing two long red boots and kept repeating, “The world is futile, and futile is everything in it,” ’ while pointing…”