so too are His attributes without any peer, for there is no difference between speaking about the Essence and speaking about the attributes, and this is the way of the early generations.

Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Munādī said: “Abū Muḥammad Ibn Qutaybah died suddenly. He let out a cry that was heard from afar and then lost consciousness. He had eaten harīsa and felt a fever. He remained like that until noon, then writhed for a while, after which he became calm and continued to recite the declaration of faith until the pre-dawn hours, when he died—may Allah pardon him—in the month of Rajab, in the year 276 AH.

The man was not a hadith specialist; rather, he was one of the eminent and renowned scholars, possessed of many disciplines and significant branches of knowledge.

I read to the musnid of Aleppo, Abū Saʿīd Sunqur ibn ʿAbd Allāh (1): “ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ibn Yūsuf informed us; Aḥmad ibn al-Mubārak al-Muraqqaʿātī informed us; my maternal grandfather Thābit ibn Bundār informed us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Isḥāq al-Labbān informed us, in the year 428 AH; Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq the ḥāfiẓ informed us; al-Haytham ibn Kulayb informed us in Bukhārā in the year (334); Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutaybah narrated to us; al-Ziyādī narrated to me; ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus narrated to me; from al-Aʿmash, from Abū Isḥāq, from ʿAbd Khayr, who said:

ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib said, ‘I never thought that the upper part of the foot had more right to wiping than its underside until I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ wipe over the tops of his feet.’ (2)