of al-Manṣūr, he would enter the ribāṭ (hospice) known as al-Rawzī (1), which stands adjacent to the mosque, turn to those present, and say: “Bear witness for me that the Qur’an is the Speech of Allah, uncreated, exactly as Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (2) affirmed— not as al-Bāqillānī asserts.” He repeated this on several Fridays, and when he was asked about it he replied, “I shall keep on doing this until the matter becomes widely known (3) among the people and the devout, and the news spreads throughout the lands (4) that I am innocent of what they are upon—meaning the Ashʿarīs— and innocent of the doctrine of Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (5). A group of itinerant jurists slip in to al-Bāqillānī secretly; they study (6) with him and are enticed (7) by his school. When they return to their homelands they inevitably broadcast their innovation, and someone may imagine that they learned it from me and that I was the one who said it (8), whereas I repudiate al-Bāqillānī’s doctrine and creed.”

Shaykh Abū al-Ḥasan (9) said: “I heard my teacher, the Imām Abū Manṣūr the jurist al-Iṣfahānī, say: I heard our shaykh, the Imām Abū Bakr al-Zādhqānī, say: I was in the lesson of Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāʾīnī, and he used to forbid his companions from…”