Aḥmad ibn Salamah informed us by written authorization, from Masʿūd al-Jammāl; Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād related to us; Abū Nuʿaym related to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sahl narrated; Ḥassān ibn Abān, the judge of Egypt, told me; Jāmiʿ ibn al-Qāsim al-Balkhī told me; and Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yazīd ibn Ḥakīm al-Mustamlī told me:

“I saw al-Shāfiʿī in the Sacred Mosque with carpets spread for him, and he was sitting on them. A man from Khurasan came up and asked, ‘Abū ʿAbd Allāh, what do you say about eating the larva of a hornet?’

He replied, ‘It is unlawful.’

The man exclaimed, ‘Unlawful?!’

Al-Shāfiʿī answered, ‘Yes—on the basis of the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, and sound reason. I seek refuge in Allah, the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing, from Satan the Accursed: “Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it; and whatever he forbids you, refrain from it” (al-Hashr 59:7).

‘Sufyān narrated to us from Zāʾidah, from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr, from a client of Ribʿī, from Ḥudhayfah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Follow the two who will come after me: Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.”

‘This is the Book, and this is the Sunnah.

‘They have also narrated to us from Isrāʾīl.’ Abū Bakr al-Mustamlī said, ‘Abū Aḥmad narrated to us, from Isrāʾīl, from Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, from Suwayd ibn Ghafalah, that ʿUmar ordered the killing of the hornet.

‘Reason likewise dictates that whatever we are commanded to kill is forbidden to eat.’ (1)

Abū Nuʿaym also said: al-Ḥasan ibn Saʿīd narrated to us; Zakariyyā al-Sājī narrated to us: I heard al-Buwaiṭī say, ‘I heard al-Shāfiʿī declare: “Allah created the universe with the command ‘Be’ (kun). If ‘Be’ itself were created, it would amount to one created thing bringing another created thing into existence.”’ (2)