He went in to see al-Amin, Muhammad ibn Hārūn, and Muhammad cursed him. Ismāʿīl replied, “You are in error.” He had been relating this hadith: “Sūrat al-Baqarah and Āl ʿImrān will come on the Day of Resurrection like two clouds, pleading on behalf of the one who used to recite them.” (1)
Someone asked Ibn ʿUlayyah, “Do the two surahs have a tongue?”
He said, “Yes.”
They said, “So he is saying that the Quran is created; he has merely slipped up.” (2)
Al-Faḍl ibn Ziyād said, “I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal about Wuhaib and Ibn ʿUlayyah: which of the two do you prefer if they disagree?”
He answered, “Wuhaib. As for Ismāʿīl, from the moment he made that statement he remained of diminished standing until he died.”
I said, “Did he not retract and repent openly before the people?”
He replied, “Indeed, but after that statement the scholars of hadith continued to dislike him. He was not fair in hadith; he would narrate only the reports about intercessions. We had with us a man from the Anṣār who frequented the shaykhs; he brought me in to see him. When Ismāʿīl saw me he became angry and said, ‘Who let this man in to see me?’ (3)”
I say: Imām Aḥmad is excused in what he said about him.
(1) Muslim, Sahih, no. 804 (Book of the Prayer of Travellers, chapter: The merit of reciting the Qurʾan and Surat al-Baqara), transmitted through al-Hasan b. ʿAli al-Halwani – al-Rabiʿ b. Nafiʿ – Muʿawiya b. Sallam – Zayd – Abu Sallam – Abu Umama al-Bahili. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Recite the Qurʾan, for it will appear on the Day of Resurrection as an intercessor for its companions. Recite the two radiant surahs, al-Baqara and Al ʿImran, for on that Day they will come like two clouds, or two canopies, or two flocks of birds in ranks, pleading for those who recited them. Recite Surat al-Baqara: taking it is a blessing, abandoning it is a source of regret, and the idle are unable to master it.” Also in Musnad Ahmad, 5/249.
(2) Tarikh Baghdad, 6/237, through Sulayman b. Ishaq al-Jallab, quoting Ibrahim al-Harbi. Al-Dhahabi comments on this report in his Mizanu l-Iʿtidal, 1/219: “Note how the earliest Muslims refrained from speculative speech: had he also said that it ‘speaks without a tongue’, they would have declared him in error. God Most High says, ‘Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge’ (17:36). Some people maintain that what actually ‘comes’ is the reward of al-Baqara and Al ʿImran. Ibn ʿUlayya later repented and kept silent.”
(3) Tarikh Baghdad, vol. 6, pp. 238–239.