On the authority of ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—(and al-Tirmidhī recorded it) who said:

“I heard the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, declare:

‘There will come tribulations, as dark as the segments of a pitch-black night.’

I asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, what is the way out of them?’

He replied, ‘The Book of Allah, Blessed and Exalted. In it is the account of those before you, the news of what will come after you, and the judgment between you. It is decisive, not frivolous. Whoever, out of tyranny, abandons it, Allah will break him; and whoever seeks guidance elsewhere, Allah will lead him astray. It is the firm rope of Allah, His radiant light, the wise reminder, the straight path. Desires cannot deviate it, tongues cannot confuse it, opinions do not diverge around it. The scholars can never exhaust its treasures, the devout never grow weary of it, it never wears out through frequent repetition, and its wonders never cease. When the jinn heard it they could not but say, “We have heard a marvelous Qur’an.” Whoever masters its knowledge is given precedence; whoever speaks according to it speaks truth; whoever judges by it judges justly; whoever acts by it is rewarded; and whoever calls to it is guided to a straight path. Take this to heart, O one-eyed man!’”

Al-Ḥārith was accused of lying by al-Shaʿbī, but that accusation carries no weight, for nothing false has actually been established against al-Ḥārith. What people found objectionable was only his excess in loving ʿAlī and preferring him over others. For this reason—and Allah knows best—al-Shaʿbī deemed him a liar, as al-Shaʿbī maintained the superiority of Abū Bakr and that he was the first to embrace Islam.

Abū ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: “I suspect al-Shaʿbī was taken to task for saying of al-Ḥārith al-Hamadhānī, ‘Al-Ḥārith—one of the great liars—narrated to me….’”

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Bashshār ibn Muḥammad al-Anbārī, the grammarian and linguist, transmitted in his work Refutation of Those Who Disagreed with ʿUthmān’s Muṣḥaf, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“Verily this Qur’an is the banquet of Allah, so learn as much as you can from His banquet. This Qur’an is the rope of Allah, the manifest light, and the beneficial cure—it is a protection for whoever clings to it and a salvation for whoever follows it. It does not bend so that it must be straightened, nor deviate so that it must be reproached. Its wonders never cease, and it never wears out through frequent repetition. Recite it, for with every letter Allah grants you ten good deeds. I do not say that ‘Alif Lām Mīm’ counts as one letter; rather, Alif is a letter, Lām is a letter, and Mīm is a letter. Let me not find any one of you reclining with one leg propped up, neglecting to recite Sūrat al-Baqarah, for Satan flees from the house in which Sūrat al-Baqarah is recited. The most deprived of homes of goodness is the house devoid of the Book of Allah.”

Abū ʿUbayd said in his Ghareeb, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh: “Indeed, this Qur’an is a banquet …”