and adopted from Ahmad ibn Harb an ostentatious austerity.

I add: He used to say that faith consists solely in the tongue’s utterance of the declaration of God’s oneness, with no need for inner conviction or bodily deeds. A number of his followers went further, asserting that the Creator is a “body unlike other bodies,” and that the Prophet could commit major sins—except lying.

Ibn Karrām was imprisoned and then exiled. He was gaunt, devoted to worship, yet scant in learning. Al-Ḥākim said: “He spent eight years in the prison of Nishapur and died in the land of Jerusalem in 255 AH.”

I remark: We have expanded his biography in History of Islam. The Karrāmiyyah were once numerous in Khurasan; they produced books, but their ranks later dwindled and disappeared—may Allah protect us from deviant whims.

147 – Yaʿqūb ibn Kaʿb ibn Ḥāmid al-Anṭākī (D)

The ḥadith master, Abū Yūsuf al-Anṭākī, originally from Aleppo.

He heard ḥadith from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Muslim, Shuʿayb ibn Isḥāq, ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus, Ibn Wahb, Abū Muʿāwiyah, and their contemporaries. He was well-traveled and distinguished.

Those who narrated from him include Abū Dāwūd, Yazīd ibn Jahwar, Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythama, Abū Bakr ibn Abī ʿĀṣim, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Būshanjī, and others.

Abū Ḥātim declared him reliable.