Bishr al-Ḥāfī said, “Muʿāfā enjoyed ample wealth and possessed many estates. On one occasion a man remarked, ‘How bitterly cold it is today!’ Muʿāfā turned to him and said, ‘Are you any warmer now? Had you kept silent, it would have been better for you.’
I say: Words of this sort are permissible, yet those early masters disliked idle talk. The scholars have differed over speech that is merely permissible: do the two recording angels write it down, or do they record only what is commendable and earns reward, together with what is blameworthy and entails liability? The sound opinion is that they record everything, owing to the general wording of the verse, “He does not utter a single word without a vigilant recorder at his side” (Qāf 50:18). The two angels, however, have no access to intentions and sincerity; they simply write what is spoken, whereas the hidden motives that prompt the utterance are entrusted to Allah.
Muʿāfā—may Allah have mercy on him—left his children a beneficial testament, roughly the size of a small booklet. Some of his higher-chain transmissions have come down to us, and he also has a brief Musnad which we have heard.
Our master, the ḥāfiẓ, Tāj al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-ʿAlawī al-Gharrafī informed us—this I read to him in Alexandria, in the month of Ramadan, 695 AH. He said:
Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Khalaf al-Qaṭīʿī informed us; it was read to him in Baghdad in 632 AH, while I was only five years old. Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allah ibn Naṣr ibn al-Sary al-Mujallad also informed us (ḥ).
Abū al-Maʿālī Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Muʾayyad al-Zāhid likewise informed us; Imam Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad al-Suhrawardī had informed him in 620 AH; and Hibat Allah ibn Aḥmad al-Qaṣṣār informed us. They both said:
Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Zaynabī informed us; Abū Ṭāhir Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Mukhlis informed us; ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Baghawī narrated to us; Muḥammad—meaning Ibn Abī