volumes. My slave-girl and I were cast ashore on an island where we found no one at all. Thirst soon overcame me and I could obtain no water, so I laid my head on her thigh, resigned to death. Suddenly a man appeared carrying a jug and said to me, “Here.” I drank and gave her to drink; then he went on his way, and I do not know where he came from or where he went.

In Abu Ishaq’s Tabaqat it is recorded that Muḥammad ibn Naṣr was born in Baghdad, grew up in Nishapur, and later settled in Samarqand.

It is related from him that he said: “I once held a poor opinion of al-Shafiʿi. While I was sitting in the Prophet’s Mosque I nodded off and saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in a dream. I said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, shall I write down al-Shafiʿi’s views?’ He lowered his head as though displeased and said, ‘You call them views? They are not mere opinion; they are a rebuttal of anyone who opposes my sunnah.’ After that vision I travelled to Egypt and copied al-Shafiʿi’s books. (1)

Abu Ishaq said: “Ibn Naṣr composed works that combined hadith reports and jurisprudence. He was among the most knowledgeable of people concerning the disagreements of the Companions and those who followed them over legal rulings, and he produced a book on the matters in which Abu Ḥanīfah differed from ʿAlī and Ibn Masʿūd.”

Abu Bakr al-Sayrafī said: “Had he written nothing but the Book of Qasāmah (Oaths of Clearance) he would already have been one of the foremost jurists—let alone the rest of his works!”

The vizier Abu al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allah al-Balʿamī (2) said: “I heard Prince Ismāʿīl ibn Aḥmad say: ‘I was in Samarqand; one day I sat to hear grievances, and…’”