It is truly astonishing that al-Ājurri transmits—in his Kitāb al-Sharīʿah (1)—chains that pass through Mālik, al-Thawrī, al-Layth, and others. Had Abū al-Maʿālī (2) and his colleagues (3) taken the time to examine the very book they rejected, they would have found in it what would silence them. Yet Abū al-Maʿālī, despite his exceptional intelligence, his eagerness for knowledge, and his lofty standing in his craft, had but scant acquaintance with Prophetic reports (5). It is quite possible that he never even opened the Muwaṭṭaʾ to see what it contains, for he possessed virtually no knowledge of the two Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and al-Tirmidhī, and works of that nature—so how could he be expected to know the Muwaṭṭaʾ and the like? Although he was keen to marshal textual evidence in disputed juristic matters, his chief reliance was on the Sunan of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Dāraquṭnī (6). Now Abū l-Ḥasan—despite his unrivaled mastery of ḥadīth—compiled that Sunan only to record the more unusual legal traditions and to gather their various chains, for it is precisely such material that requires a scholar of his calibre; as for the well-known ḥadīths
(1) Abu al-Hasan al-Ajurri transmits these reports in his Kitab al-Shariʿah on several occasions. For example, see his transmission from Malik in the chapter on faith that Allah, the Exalted and Majestic, descends to the lowest heaven (p. 308); from al-Thawri in the same chapter (p. 309); and from al-Layth ibn Saʿd in the chapter on faith that Allah, the Exalted and Majestic, has two hands, both of which are on the right (p. 322).
(2) The original reads “ta’awwala.” This is a scribal error. The correct reading is thabbit, derived from the root s-ṭ-b.
(3) In all extant copies it appears as “wa-dhuyūh.” The correct reading is likely the emendation he has established.
(4) In all manuscripts it reads “ʿalā al-ḥikāyah” (on the authority). The usual reading, however, is “walākin Abā.”
(5) Al-Dhahabī’s remark on Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī was cited above: despite his exceptional intellect, his mastery of the branches and principles of the madhhab, and his strength in debate, he did not know hadith as befits him, neither in matn nor in isnād. See Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ by al-Dhahabī, vol. 18, p. 471.
(6) Ibn ʿAsākir records in Tabyīn Kadhb al-Muftarī (p. 285): “I, Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī, heard the Sunan of al-Daraqutnī from Abū Saʿd ibn ʿAlayk, and he used to rely upon those ahādīth in matters of disagreement.”