he would act upon it; but if a report of greater strength opposed it, he would set it aside in favor of the stronger evidence. Likewise, when an issue contained both a weak ḥadith and analogy, he preferred the weak ḥadith to analogy.

Now, what Aḥmad labels “weak” is not identical with the technical sense adopted by later scholars. The early authorities, including Aḥmad, divided reports only into “sound” and “weak,” and what the later scholars subsequently termed “ḥasan” (fair) lay within their broad category of “weak,” with varying ranks.

The first person known to have classified reports into three levels was Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī; after him the scholars followed his scheme. (1)

Accordingly, Aḥmad gives precedence to the “weak”—meaning what would later be called ḥasan—over analogy, yet he pays no heed to a feeble report that cannot serve as proof; indeed, he censures anyone who relies on such a report or bases a ruling on it. If he possessed no ḥadith on a given matter, he adopted the statements of the Companions and never contravened them; and when the Companions themselves differed, he weighed their opinions and did not depart from them. Hence, whenever the Companions disagreed on an issue, his own responses usually varied as well, so that it is rare to find a question in which the Companions hold two positions without there being two—or more—narrations from him on the same point. In this way he proved the most devoted of Allah’s servants to the sunan, whether traced back to the Prophet (marfūʿ) or halted at the Companions (mawqūf).

The ḥadith master Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī composed a work detailing the virtues and distinctive qualities of the Musnad. (2) In it he said: “Among the proofs that whatever Imām Aḥmad placed in the Musnad has