Hanbal said, “When we set about treating him we feared that Ibn Abī Dāwūd might approach the physician and have him drop poison into the medicine, so we prepared the remedy and the ointment ourselves. We kept them in a small jar (1); whenever the physician treated him we would bring it out, and when he finished we removed it again.

He added, “Whenever the cold troubled him, a covering was placed over him.

“And I thought I had spent every last ounce of my strength.”

The Ordeal under al-Wāthiq

Hanbal said, “After Abū ʿAbd Allāh recovered from the flogging (2) he continued to attend the Friday and daily congregational prayers, to relate hadith, and to issue legal rulings, until al-Muʿtaṣim died and his son al-Wāthiq succeeded him. Al-Wāthiq revived the inquisition and openly favored Aḥmad ibn Abī Dāwūd and his followers.

When the pressure on the people of Baghdad became intense and the judges enforced the doctrine that the Qur’an is created—separating Faḍl al-Anmāṭī from (3) his wife and Abū Ṣāliḥ from (3) his wife—Abū ʿAbd Allāh would still attend the Friday prayer but would repeat the prayer after returning home, saying, “One attends Friday for its merit, but the prayer must be repeated after praying behind someone who professes this doctrine.”

A group came to Abū ʿAbd Allāh and said, “This affair has spread and grown serious, and we fear it will reach matters worse than this.” They mentioned Ibn Abī Dāwūd and that he was about to order the schoolmasters to teach the children in the kuttāb (4): “The Qur’an is such-and-such” (5). “We are not content with his authority,” they said.

He forbade them from taking that step and debated with them.

Aḥmad (6) later explained his purpose in that debate and instructed them to be patient. He said, “While we were