and his unrivalled mastery of the transmitted disciplines—the legal opinions of the Companions, their judicial decisions, their consensus and their disagreements—is beyond dispute. As for the Arabic language, Ahmad said, “I have written on Arabic matters more than Abū ʿAmr al-Shaybānī wrote.” With regard to analogical reasoning, he possessed powers of legal inference whose full description would be lengthy¹.

Imam Ibn al-Jawzī said: “Know that we examined the proofs of the Sacred Law and the principles of jurisprudence, and we scrutinised the condition of the leading mujtahids. We found this man to have the greatest share of those sciences, for he was among those who had memorised the Book of Allah.” Abū Bakr ibn Ḥamdān al-Qaṭīʿī relates: “I recited to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and he told me, ‘My father Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal taught me the entire Qur’an, selecting its readings.’ Aḥmad likewise recited—with full chains of transmission—to Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, ʿUbayd ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar, and others.”

Aḥmad would apply no imāla (vowel inclination) in any part of the Qur’an, citing the hadith, “It was revealed with emphatic pronunciation, so pronounce it emphatically.” He practised no idghām (assimilation) in Qur’anic recitation except in ittakhadhtum and similar words, as was also the practice of Abū Bakr, and he lengthened the vowels (madd) to a moderate extent. May Allah have mercy on him, he authored works in many disciplines—Qur’anic exegesis, the abrogating and the abrogated, precedence and deferment, and much else besides.

In the field of transmitted reports everyone conceded his unique distinction, unmatched by any other imam, both for the sheer quantity he had committed to memory and for his discrimination between the sound and the weak and his command of the ancillary sciences of hadith. It is established that among the great imams before him none possessed a share in hadith equal to that of Mālik. Whoever wishes to understand Aḥmad’s rank in relation to Mālik’s should compare the difference between the Musnad and the Muwaṭṭaʾ².