a tablet bearing the likeness of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), while Ibn Khuzaymah was rubbing it to a shine. The dream-interpreter said, “This is a man who revives the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).”

Imam Abū al-ʿAbbās Ibn Surayj—when Ibn Khuzaymah’s name was mentioned to him—remarked, “He extracts the finest subtleties from the hadith of the Messenger of Allah as if with tweezers.”

This imam was a master critic, deeply versed in the narrators. Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar, the teacher of al-Ḥākim, related from him that he said:

“I do not use as proof Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, nor Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān because of his doctrinal position (1), nor ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, nor Baqiyyah, nor Muqātil ibn Ḥayyān, nor Ashʿath ibn Sawwār, nor ʿAlī ibn Judʿān on account of his poor memory, nor ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUbayd Allāh, nor Ibn ʿAqīl, nor Yazīd ibn Abī Ziyād, nor Mujālid, nor Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāt when he says “from”, nor Abū Ḥudhayfah al-Nahdī, nor Jaʿfar ibn Burqān, nor Abū Maʿshar Najīḥ, nor ʿUmar ibn Abī Salamah, nor Qābūs ibn Abī Ẓubyān …”

He then named a group even lower than these in integrity, although more than one scholar has nevertheless relied upon the narrators already mentioned.

Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAnbarī said: I heard Ibn Khuzaymah declare, “No one’s opinion counts alongside that of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) once an authentic report is established.”

Al-Ḥākim said: I heard Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Hāniʾ relate that he heard Ibn Khuzaymah say, “Whoever does not acknowledge that Allah, upon His Throne, has risen above His seven heavens is a disbeliever whose blood is lawful and whose property is fayʾ (war booty).”

I say: Whoever affirms this in acceptance of the Book of Allah and the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), consigning its true nature to Allah and His Messenger, and refrains from speculative interpretation or needless probing, he is the Muslim who follows the path. But whoever denies it, being unaware that it is firmly established in the Book and the Sunnah, then he is