than, after associating partners with Allah, there is no sin more grievous than it? We have already shown that what he made the very foundation of his religion in al-Irshād, al-Shāmil, and other works is precisely the kalām the imams themselves had condemned.
For that reason Ibn Tāhir (1) relates that, at the time of his death (2), he said:
“I plunged into the raging sea, abandoned the Muslims and their sciences, and involved myself in what they had forbidden me. Now, if my Lord does not overtake me (3) with His mercy, woe to Ibn al-Juwaynī! Here I am (4) dying upon my mother’s creed—or rather upon the creed of the old women of Nishapur.”
And (5) Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥasan ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Rustamī (6) said: The Imām, the jurist Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī (7) narrated to us: “We entered upon the Imām…"
(1) He is Abu al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Maqdisī al-Ẓāhirī al-Ṣūfī, known as Ibn al-Qasrānī. He died in 507 AH. Al-Dhahabī remarks: “He deviated from the Sunnah into a form of Sufism that is not approved, yet he himself is trustworthy (ṣaduq) and never accused; he possessed sound memorization and undertook extensive travel.” See: Wafayāt al-Aʿyān (The Obituaries of Notables) by Ibn Khallikān, vol. 4, pp. 287–288; Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl (The Just Balance) by al-Dhahabī, vol. 3, p. 587; al-Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt (The Comprehensive Book of Obituaries) by al-Ṣafadī, vol. 3, pp. 166–168.
(2) See al-Juwaynī’s statement (with variant wording) in al-Muntaẓam by Ibn al-Jawzī, vol. 9, p. 19; al-ʿUqūd al-Durriyya by Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, p. 74; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ by al-Dhahabī, vol. 18, p. 471; and Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya by al-Subkī, vol. 5, p. 185.
(3) In the original: yudārikunī. The reading confirmed by manuscripts S and Ṭ and by the sources in which the report appears.
(4) In manuscript Ṭ: wa-hā ʾanā (and here I am).
(5) It is recorded with slight variation by al-Dhahabī in Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, vol. 18, p. 474, and by al-Subkī in Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya, vol. 5, p. 191.
(6) He is Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥasan ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan al-Rustamī al-Aṣbahānī, one of the Shāfiʿī imams and a devout, austere jurist. He died in 561 AH. See: al-Muntaẓam by Ibn al-Jawzī, vol. 10, p. 219; Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya by al-Subkī, vol. 7, pp. 64–65; al-Bidāya wa-l-Nihāya by Ibn Kathīr, vol. 12, p. 268.
(7) In the original (manuscript S): al-Tanzī, which is a scribal error. The reading supported by manuscript Ṭ, by Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, and by Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya. I have found no separate biography for him.