More than one narrator transmitted from Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj that he said:
“I heard Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd declare: ‘This is the doctrine of the leading imams of Islam and of the people of the Sunnah and the united community: we acknowledge our Lord, Allah, to be in the seventh heaven, upon His Throne, just as He, exalted is He, says: ‘The All-Merciful rose over the Throne’ (Qur’an 20:5).’

Among the verses of poetry attributed to Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd are his words:
Were it not for the decree that must inevitably reach a man,
and the sustenance a person consumes in accordance with destiny, (1)
never would someone like me have taken Baghlān as a residence,
nor would anyone pass through it save while on a journey. (2)

Al-Nasāʾī’s journey to Qutaybah took place in 230 AH. He stayed with him an entire year and wrote down a great deal from him, yet he declined—and felt uneasy about—transmitting the Kitāb Ibn Lahiʿah, because in his view it was weak.

It was said that the reason Qutaybah left the city of Balkh and settled in the village of Baghlān was that Mālik was present with him when Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al-Balkhī came to hear hadith. Qutaybah emerged and said, ‘He is one of the Murjiʾah.’ Mālik therefore expelled him from the session. Now Ibrāhīm enjoyed considerable standing in his homeland, so he grew hostile toward Qutaybah and drove him out.

I know of nothing they held against Qutaybah except that well-known hadith concerning combining the prayers while traveling. (3)

Aḥmad ibn Salamah said: “My father prepared a meal and invited Isḥāq. Then he said, ‘This son of mine has been pressing me to travel to Qutaybah; what is your view?’ He (Isḥāq) looked at me and said:”