al-ʿAṭashī (1), and Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥammāl. After him Ibn Ghassān assumed the seat of spiritual instruction and endowed a house of his own.

al-Dāraqutnī said: “Ahmad ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Hujaymī narrates from Khālid al-ʿAbd and other weak transmitters; his ḥadith is to be abandoned.”

Zakariyyā al-Sājī said: “He was the keeper of the miḍmār (training track). He strove hard—meaning in worship—but he was careless and would relate what he had never heard.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said: “I visited him one day and found a scroll in his hand from which he was narrating. I asked, ‘Did you actually hear this?’ He replied, ‘No, but I bought it, and it contains fine traditions which I am relating to these people.’ I said, ‘Do you not fear Allah—you are trying to draw the servants of Allah nearer to Him by lying against the Messenger of Allah ﷺ!’”

I say: The man did not understand what ḥadith really is, though he was a righteous servant who fell into the Qadarī doctrine. We seek refuge in Allah from the absurdities of the wool-clad; there is no good except in following the Sunnah, and such following is impossible without knowledge of the prophetic traditions.

This Hujaymī died in 200 AH.

Ahmad ibn Ghassān died before 230 AH, but he recanted Qadarism and refused to say that the Qurʾan was created. He was seized and imprisoned, where he met Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal and al-Buwayṭī. They were impressed by his bearing and speech, conversed with him, and he benefited from them.

Ibn al-Aʿrābī said: “Yet his own companions deny that he ever renounced Qadarism.”