Muʿādh likewise said:

“You will see nothing from the rulers but harshness, and no matter that alarms you (1) and bears heavily upon you will come except that what follows it will be even more severe.”

Al-Baghawī said, “I heard Aḥmad say, ‘O Allah, we are content…’—and he lengthened his voice as he said it (2).”

Al-Bayhaqī narrated from al-Rabīʿ, who said:

“Al-Shāfiʿī sent me from Egypt with a letter to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. I reached him just after he had finished the dawn prayer, so I handed him the letter.

He asked, ‘Have you read it?’

I replied, ‘No.’ He then took it, read it, and tears filled his eyes.

I said, ‘Abū ʿAbd Allāh, what is in it?’

He replied, ‘He writes that he saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in a dream, and the Prophet said to him, “Write to Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and convey my greetings of peace to him, and say: You will be tested and summoned to declare that the Qur’an is created; do not respond to them. Allah will raise your banner until the Day of Resurrection.”’

Al-Rabīʿ said, ‘I exclaimed, “Glad tidings!” Then he removed the shirt that was next to his skin and gave it to me. When I returned to al-Shāfiʿī and informed him, he said, “I do not intend to deprive you of it; rather, moisten it with water and give it to me so that I may seek blessing through it.”’

A concise account of the tribulation (fitnah) and the great ordeal (miḥnah), compiled from the statements of the imams of the Sunnah (may Allah be pleased with them) and may He reward them with Paradise.

We have already mentioned that al-Maʾmūn was surrounded and dominated by a group of the Muʿtazilah who led him away from the path of truth to falsehood, adorning for him the doctrine that the Qur’an is created and the denial of Allah’s attributes—Exalted is He.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī said, “None of the caliphs before him—neither of the Umayyads nor of the ʿAbbāsids—had deviated from the way of the early generations until he assumed the caliphate; then those people approached him and induced him to adopt that position.”

They said, “It so happened that he set out for Ṭarṣūs to campaign against the Byzantines, and it occurred to him to write to the governor of Baghdad, Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muṣʿab, ordering him to summon the people to affirm that the Qur’an is created. This took place late in his life, a few months before his death, in the year 218 AH.

When the letter arrived—as we have related—he summoned a group of the hadith scholars and called them to that statement, but they refused. He threatened them with beating and cutting off their stipends, so most of them complied under duress. The only ones who persisted in their refusal were Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and Muḥammad ibn Nūḥ al-Jundaysābūrī. Both of them were placed on a single camel and dispatched (3) to the caliph by his order, while they were