151 — Sa'īd ibn Muhammad al-Jarmī narrated to us: Abū Tumaylah narrated to us, saying: Abū ⦗112⦘ Ja'far al-Nahwī narrated to me: Sakhr ibn Abdullah ibn Buraydah narrated to us, from his father, from his grandfather, who, while sitting in Kufa in a gathering with his companions, said: I heard the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—say, “Indeed, some eloquence is sorcery, some knowledge is ignorance, some poetry is wisdom, and some speech is a burden.”

Sa'sa'ah ibn Sūhān—who was the youngest of the group—said, “Allah and His Messenger have spoken the truth. Even had he not said these words, it would still have been so.”

A man among those present took note of him and, after the gathering had dispersed, asked him, “What prompted you to say, ‘The Prophet of Allah spoke the truth, and even had he not said these words, it would still have been so’?”

He replied, “Certainly. As for the words of the Prophet of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—‘Indeed, some eloquence is sorcery,’ a man may be in the wrong yet more skillful in argument than the party who is in the right. He bewitches the people with his eloquence and thereby wrests away a right that he himself owes. As for his words, ‘Some knowledge is ignorance,’ it is when a scholar, in addition to what he knows, lays claim to what he does not know, thereby exposing himself as ignorant. As for his words, ‘Some poetry is wisdom,’ these are the admonitions and proverbs through which people are exhorted. As for his words, ‘Some speech is a burden,’ it is your presenting your words and conversation to someone to whom they are of no concern and who does not want to hear them.”