and leave aside whatever they are bound to reject; would you like Allah and His Messenger to be declared liars? (1) Have you not heard the ḥadith (2): “Whenever you relate to a people a narration their minds cannot grasp, it becomes a source of tribulation for some of them”?
After that, Wakiʿ took heart, performed the pilgrimage, and death overtook him at Fayda (3).
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī said: Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal told us; Wakiʿ narrated to us a ḥadith concerning the Kursi (4). A man who was present with Wakiʿ shuddered, whereupon Wakiʿ grew angry and said, “We met al-Aʿmash and al-Thawrī narrating these very ḥadiths, and they did not repudiate them.”
Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Tamīmī said: I heard Wakiʿ say, “Whoever doubts that the Quran is the speech of Allah—that is, not created—is a disbeliever.”
Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Dawraqī said: I heard Wakiʿ say, “We accept these ḥadiths exactly as they have come; we do not ask, ‘How can this be?’ or ‘Why is it so?’”—meaning reports such as the ḥadith: “He carries the heavens upon a finger.” (5)
(1) Reported by al-Bukhari, 1/199, Book of Knowledge, chapter “Whoever restricts knowledge to a select group lest others fail to grasp it.”
(2) That is, in the athar (Companions’ report). It is not a Prophetic hadith but a statement of Ibn Masud; Muslim included it in his Sahih, 1/11, Introduction.
(3) Fayd: a small town located midway on the route from Kufa to Mecca.
(4) Cited by Waki in his Tafsir, as reproduced by Ibn Kathir, 1/309, through the chain: Sufyan – Ammar al-Dahni – Muslim al-Batin – Said b. Jubayr – Ibn Abbas, who said: “The kursi is the place of His feet, while no one can comprehend the magnitude of the Throne.” Al-Hakim also recorded it in al-Mustadrak, 2/282, with this chain, judged it authentic according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs though they did not include it, and al-Dhahabi concurred.
(5) Reported by al-Bukhari, 8/423 (Tafsir of Surat al-Zumar); 13/335–336 (Book of Tawhid, chapter on Allah’s words lima khalaqtu bi-yadayya – “for what I created with My two Hands”); 13/369 (chapter on the verse inna Allah yumsiku al-samawati wa-l-arda an tazula – “Indeed Allah holds the heavens and the earth lest they vanish”); and 13/397 (chapter on the Lord’s speech to the prophets on the Day of Resurrection). Also by Muslim (no. 2786) in the Book on the Resurrection, and by al-Tirmidhi (no. 3239), from Ibn Masud: A Jewish scholar came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, “O Muhammad, Allah holds the heavens on one finger and the earths on one finger…”