the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—had gestured. Al-Barāʾ then said, “My hand is shorter than the hand of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—,” [for he disliked describing the hand of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—]. (1) He felt such reverence for him, even though he is a created being; how much greater, then, should the reverence be for the Creator, to whom nothing at all is comparable?
The point intended (2) by Malik’s statement—“Whoever describes anything of Allah’s very essence, thereby treating the thing described as part of Allah’s essence”—is the very position upheld by the majority of the early scholars. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Salamah al-Mājishūn (3) expressed the same view as Malik (4) in his well-known discourse on the divine attributes. This wording has been transmitted with sound chains by Abū Bakr al-Athram, Abū ʿUmar al-Talamanikī, and Abū ʿAbd Allah ibn Battah in their respective works (5), as well as by others.
= Fayruz from al-Bara’. Scholars have acted upon this hadith.
It was narrated by Ibn Majah, vol. 2, p. 1050, Kitab al-Adha (Book of Sacrifice), chapter “What Is Disliked as a Sacrifice,” hadith no. 3144. And by Imam Ahmad in his Musnad, vol. 4, pp. 200–201.
(1) The passage enclosed in brackets is duplicated in manuscript S—a slip by the copyist.
(2) In the original manuscript S: al-maqsud (“the intended”); in manuscript T: al-muthabbit (“the established”).
(3) It appears, with its isnad, in al-Dhahabi’s Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’, vol. 7, pp. 311–312; see also al-Dhahabi’s Mukhtasar al-‘Ulu (abridged by al-Albani), pp. 144–145, with comparative notes. The late Shaykh (may God have mercy on him) cited it in al-Fatwa al-Hamawiyya, pp. 42–46 (Fatwas, vol. 5). Shaykh al-Islam mentioned parts of it in his Dar’ Ta‘arud al-‘Aql wa al-Naql, vol. 1, pp. 35–37, and al-Lalakai in his Sharh ‘Aqida Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama‘a, vol. 3, pp. 502–503.
(4) That is, the mufti and chief scholar of Medina alongside Imam Malik.
(5) In al-Fatwa al-Hamawiyya, p. 42, the Shaykh reports that Abu Bakr al-Athram transmitted it in al-Sunnah, and Ibn Batta in al-Ibana, on an authentic isnad. In Dar’ Ta‘arud al-‘Aql wa al-Naql, vol. 2, p. 35, he notes that Abu ‘Umar al-Talmanqi recorded it in his al-Usul. I have examined the manuscript “Mukhtar min Kitab al-Ibana” by Ibn Batta (copied by Ahmad b. ‘Ali al-Hanafi), where he records the statement of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. Abi Salama (folios 181–183). I will collate these at the end of the excerpts from the Siyar and the Mukhtasar.