I said: It may be argued that this very report counts as a merit for Muʿāwiyah, for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “O Allah, anyone I have cursed or reviled, make that for him a purification and a mercy.” (1)

Maʾmūn al-Miṣrī, the ḥadith scholar, recounted: “We traveled to Tarsus with al-Nasāʾī in the Year of Fidāʾ. A group of leading scholars gathered there—ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Murabbaʿ, Abū al-Ādhān, and Kīlajah (2). They consulted one another, asking: ‘Who will sift the narrations for us from the teachers?’ They unanimously chose Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī, and all of them recorded what he selected.”

Al-Ḥākim said: “Al-Nasāʾī’s commentary on the jurisprudential implications of hadith is extensive, and whoever studies his Sunan is left astonished by the excellence of his discourse.”

Ibn al-Athīr, at the beginning of Jāmiʿ al-Uṣūl (3), wrote: “He was a Shāfiʿī; he authored manuals on the rites of pilgrimage according to the Shāfiʿī school, and he was pious and scrupulously careful.”

It was said that al-Nasāʾī once came to al-Ḥārith ibn Miskīn in attire the latter found unfamiliar—a qalansuwah (cap) and a qabāʾ (cloak). Al-Ḥārith, who was anxious about certain matters involving the authorities, feared he might be an informer and therefore barred him from entry. Al-Nasāʾī would come, sit behind the door, and listen; hence he never said, “Al-Ḥārith narrated to us,” but rather, “Al-Ḥārith ibn Miskīn said—while it was being read to him and I was listening.” (4)