Al-Zubaydī said, “I counted the ḥurūf of Gharīb al-Muṣannaf and found them to be seventeen thousand, nine hundred and seventy ḥarf.” (1)
I comment: By ḥarf he means a single lexical item.
Abu Muḥammad ibn ʿUlwān informed us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ibrāhīm informed us; ʿAbd al-Mughīth ibn Zuhayr informed us; Aḥmad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh related to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-ʿUshārī narrated to us; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Dāraqutnī informed us; Muḥammad ibn Makhlad informed us; al-ʿAbbās al-Dūrī informed us; he said, “I heard Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām—mentioning the chapter that contains the reports on the Beatific Vision, that the kursī is the place of the two Feet (2), that our Lord laughs, and the ḥadith ‘Where was our Lord?’ (3)—say:
‘These are sound ḥadith (4). The scholars of ḥadith and the jurists have transmitted them, one from another, and we hold them to be true without the slightest doubt. But if someone asks, “How does He laugh?” or “How did He place His Foot?” we say: We do not explain that, nor have we ever heard anyone explain it.’”
(1) Inba al-Ruwat, 3/21, and Bughyat al-Wuʿat, 2/254, where the reading is “and seven hundred” instead of “and nine hundred.”
(2) Wakiʿ relates in his Tafsir, on the authority of Sufyan, ʿAmmar al-Duhni, Muslim al-Batin, Saʿid ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbas: “The kursi is the place of His two feet, while the ʿarsh is of such magnitude that no one can comprehend it.” Al-Hakim also recorded it in his Mustadrak, 2/282, through the isnad of Abu al-ʿAbbas Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mahbubi -> Muhammad ibn Muʿadh -> Abu ʿAsim -> Sufyan, and declared it sahih; al-Dhahabi agreed. However, as Ibn Kathir demonstrated in his Tafsir, 1/309, and others confirmed, it is not sound when attributed to the Prophet as a marfuʿ report.
(3) Reported by Ahmad, 4/11–12; al-Tirmidhi (no. 3109, Tafsir of Surah Hud); and Ibn Majah (no. 112, Muqaddima), through Yazid ibn Harun -> Hammad ibn Salama -> Yaʿla ibn ʿAtaʾ -> Wakiʿ ibn ʿAddas -> his uncle Abu Razin. Abu Razin asked: “Messenger of Allah, where was our Lord before He created His creation?” He replied: “He was in ʿamaʾ (a dense cloud), with no air beneath it and no air above it; there was no creation. Then He created His Throne upon the water.” The chain is weak because Wakiʿ ibn ʿAddas is unknown; only Ibn Hibban rated him reliable, following his usual practice of endorsing unidentified narrators.
(4) Consequently, the authenticity of both reports—“The kursi is the place of the feet” and “Where was our Lord?”—cannot be established.