and the Followers as well, together with the proof for every view; out of that material he also produced most of the Book of Prayer and, from it, The Etiquette of Judges.

He went on to compose the Book of Minutes and Registers; the Book of Ranking the Scholars—one of his treasured writings—in which he opened with the disciplines of the soul and the maxims of the Sufis, yet he did not complete it. He also authored the Book of the Rites, the concise Book Explication of the Sunnah in which he set out his legal school and creed, and his Musnad with full critical documentation, intending to include everything a Companion had transmitted, whether sound or weak, but he did not finish it.

When he heard that Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd had spoken against the hadith of Ghadīr Khumm (1), he compiled the Book of Virtues, beginning with the merits of Abū Bakr and then ʿUmar; he discussed the authentication of the hadith of Ghadīr Khumm, argued for its soundness, yet the book, too, remained unfinished.

He was of those who feared no reproach in the cause of Allah, despite the severe harm and slander he endured from the ignorant, the envious, and the irreligious. As for people of religion and learning, none denied his scholarship, his renunciation of worldly things, his disdain for them, and—may Allah have mercy on him—his contentment with the modest income that came to him from a small estate his father had left him in Tabaristān.

Hārūn ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated to me: Abū Jaʿfar said, “I performed istikhārah and asked Allah’s help for three years regarding my intention to write the Tafsīr before I actually began, and He aided me.”

The judge Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Quḍāʿī reported: ʿAlī ibn Naṣr ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ told us, and Abū ʿUmar ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Simsār and Abū al-Qāsim ibn ʿAqīl al-Warrāq told us, that Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī said to his companions, “Would you be enthusiastic about a history of the world from Adam up to our own time?” They asked, “How large would it be?” He said, “About thirty thousand folios.” They responded, “That is something that would wear out…"