the marketplaces, and that Allah descends to the lowest heaven every night, and other reports of this nature. He said, “We transmit these hadiths and accept them as they have reached us, without asking how (bilā kayf).”

24 – Abu Bakr al-Khallāl said: Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Wāṣil al-Muqriʾ informed me; al-Haytham ibn Khārijah narrated to us; al-Walīd ibn Muslim narrated, saying, “I asked Mālik ibn Anas, Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, and al-Awzāʿī about the reports that deal with the divine attributes, and they replied, ‘Let them pass as they have come.’”

25 – Yahya ibn ʿAmmār said: “These are the imams of the major Muslim lands: Mālik is the imam of the people of the Hijaz; al-Thawrī is the imam of the people of Iraq; al-Awzāʿī is the imam of the people of al-Shām; and al-Layth is the imam of the people of Egypt and the Maghrib.”

26 – Abu ʿUbayd said: “We never met anyone who interpreted these hadiths, and we ourselves do not interpret them.”

27 – ʿAbbās al-Dūrī reported: “I heard Yahya ibn Maʿīn say, ‘I was present when Zakariyyā ibn ʿAdī asked Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ, saying, O Abū Sufyān, these hadiths…’”