and said, “I saw my Lord.” Then, after offering these distorted interpretations, he said: “It is also possible that this is one of the hadiths fabricated by heretics and slipped into the books of hadith scholars.”

To this foolish opponent, whom the devils toy with, we reply: What heretic ever gained access to the books of hadith scholars such as Hammād ibn Salamah, Hammād ibn Zayd, Sufyān, Shu‘bah, Mālik, Wakī‘, and their peers, so as to slip unsound reports into their books? Most of these men preserved hadith in memory, while those among them who kept written collections would scarcely allow even those they trusted to see their books—so how could