and the example of ʿUthmān is as God says: “We shall remove whatever rancour lies in their breasts (1)” (al-Aʿrāf 43; al-Ḥijr 47).
Al-Khallāl relates: Abū Bakr ibn Ṣadaqah informed us; I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣayrafī say:
“I went with ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd al-Jammāl to visit Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal near the end of the year 200 AH.
Abū ʿAbd Allāh said to al-Jammāl, ‘Abū Muḥammad, some people are asking me to narrate; what is your opinion?’
He remained silent, so I said, ‘I shall answer you.’
He replied, ‘Speak.’
I said, ‘In my view, if you feel an urge to relate hadith, then do not narrate; but if you feel no urge to narrate, then narrate.’
It seemed that he approved of that.”
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad said: I heard Nūḥ ibn Ḥabīb al-Qūmasī say:
“I saw Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in the Mosque of al-Khayf in the year 198 AH, while Ibn ʿUyaynah was still alive. He was issuing a broad legal opinion, and I greeted him.”
ʿAbd Allāh added: I heard my father in the year 237 AH say,
“I have sought God’s guidance never to relate a hadith in full again.
God says, ‘O you who believe, fulfil your covenants’ (al-Mā’idah 1), and I hereby pledge to God that I will never narrate a hadith in its entirety.
Not even for you, however much you might wish it.”
A few months later I said to him, “Is it not reported from Sharīk, from Yazīd ibn Abī Ziyād, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith, from Ibn ʿAbbās—
‘A covenant is an oath (2)?’”
He replied, “Yes.”
Then he fell silent, and I assumed