I said, “What he meant was that I would not narrate anything during your lifetime.”
He had simply expressed himself poorly.
“Do not blame me for the weakness of my mind—once you are certain that I am a man of Hamadhān!” (1)
Al-Qāsim ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ said: “During the days of the Hajj, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Qusṭānī (2) and Ḥuraysh ibn Aḥmad came to Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥusayn. They asked him about the ḥadīth of the Slander—the version transmitted by al-Farwī from Mālik (3). He cast a glance their way, whereupon al-Zaʿfarānī said to him, ‘Abū Isḥāq! Are you going to narrate to heretics?’
He replied, ‘And who is the heretic?’
Al-Zaʿfarānī answered, ‘This man. Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī will not relate a ḥadīth until he has first tested the listener.’
Ibrāhīm retorted, ‘In our estimation Abū Ḥātim is the Commander of the Faithful in ḥadīth, but putting people to the test is the creed of the Khārijites. Whoever attends my gathering—if he is from Ahl al-Sunnah—will hear what gladdens his eyes; and if he is from the people of innovation, he will hear what makes his eyes burn, by Allah’s decree.’ At that, the two men rose and left without hearing anything from him.
The ḥāfiẓ Shīrawayh (4) produced a lengthy biography of Ibrāhīm and mentioned therein, without an isnād, that he said
(1) The verse is found in Badiʿ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani, Rasaʾil, p. 181, first edition, al-Jawaʾib Press, 1298 AH/1881 CE. It appears at the end of al-Hamadhani’s letter to Shaykh Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Faris, written in reply to a letter in which Ibn Faris lamented the decadence of the age.
(2) al-Qustani—with a damma on the qaf and a sukun on the sin—is a nisba derived from Qustana, a village situated between al-Rayy and Sawa (al-Lubab; see also Yaqut’s geographical dictionary).
(3) The hadith of al-ifk is transmitted through Ibn Dizil from Ismail ibn Abi Idris in his fascicle, fol. 166, preserved at the Ahmadiyya School in Aleppo, with a hearing certificate dated 920 AH. The same report reaches us through several isnads from al-Zuhri—via ʿUrwa ibn al-Zubayr, Saʿid ibn al-Musayyab, ʿAlqama ibn Waqqas al-Laythi, and ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUtba—from ʿAʾisha. It is recorded by al-Bukhari 5/198, 201 (Book of Testimonies, chapter “Women may declare one another trustworthy”) and 8/342, 370 (Tafsir of Surat al-Nur, chapter “If only, when you heard it, the believing men and women had thought well of their own souls…”); by Muslim, no. 2770 (Book of Repentance, chapter on the hadith of al-ifk and accepting the repentance of the slanderer); by al-Tirmidhi, no. 3179; and by al-Nasaʾi 1/163–164.
(4) The reference is to the hadith scholar and memoriser Shiruya ibn Shahardar ibn Shiruya. Al-Dhahabi notes in Tadhkira al-huffaz, p. 1259: “He was the leading scholar of Hamadhan, author of its history and of the book al-Firdaws.” He died in 509 AH.