against Muḥammad ibn Karrām (1) and, according to what is reported, expelled him from Herat.

ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd said, “Whoever has not gathered the ḥadith of Shuʿbah, Sufyān, Mālik, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, and Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah is bankrupt in ḥadith”—meaning that he has not reached the rank of the master memorisers.

There is no doubt that anyone who amasses the learning of these five, masters all of their reports, records them with both short and lengthy chains, and perceives their subtle defects has encompassed half of the Prophetic sunnah—indeed, more than that. In our time, however, no one capable of accomplishing this—even partially—can be found, so we ask Allah’s forgiveness.

Furthermore, were someone to pursue only the ḥadith of Sufyān al-Thawrī, transcribe them with his own full chains of transmission, and distinguish the sound from the unsound, his Musnad alone would run to ten volumes. Yet nowadays the task of the ḥadith scholar is to devote himself to the Six Books, the Musnad of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and the Sunan of al-Bayhaqī, rigorously verifying their texts and chains. Still, none of that will benefit him unless he fears his Lord and lives by the ḥadith. So let whoever would mourn for the science of ḥadith and its scholars weep, for pure Islam has once again become a stranger as it began (2). Let each person strive to ransom his own neck from the Fire; there is no might and no power except with Allah.

Knowledge, then, is not an abundance of narrations; rather, it is a light that Allah casts into the heart. Its condition is adherence to the truth and flight from caprice and innovation. May Allah grant us and you success in obeying Him.

The ḥadith scholar Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad ibn Ziyād al-Harawī, the companion of Ibn Maʿīn, said: