Mālik said:

‘Ibn Hurmuz was a man whose example I loved to follow. He spoke little, seldom issued legal opinions, and exercised great caution. Often, after giving someone a legal opinion, he would send for him to return and revise what he had told him.’

He said:

‘He was well versed in theological disputation and would refute the followers of deviant doctrines. He was knowledgeable about the matters on which people differed concerning these doctrines.’”

Ibn ‘Asākir related through al-Bayhaqī, from al-Hākim: I heard Abū Bakr ibn ‘Abd Allāh Yūsuf al-Hafīd—from his original manuscript—say: I heard al-Husayn ibn al-Fudayl al-Bajalī say:

“I visited Zuhayr ibn Harb after he returned from al-Ma’mūn, who had subjected him to interrogation, whereupon he had given the answer demanded of him. The first thing he said to me was, ‘‘Alī, do you record hadith from apostates?’

“I replied, ‘Allah forbid! You are no apostate. Allah Most High has said:

“‘Whoever disbelieves in Allah after having believed—except one who is compelled while his heart remains firm in faith…’

“Thus Allah has granted the person under coercion the exemption he hears stated in the Quran. I then asked him about matters that would take too long to recount. He said, ‘The hardest of them