al-Sakhtiyānī: “Among my neighbours are people whose supplications in the hours before dawn I hope will bring blessings, yet if one of them testified before me concerning some greens, I would not accept his testimony.”

For this reason, among people known for goodness, asceticism, and worship, the hadith scholars distinguish between Thābit al-Bunānī, al-Fudayl ibn ‘Iyād, and others like them, and Mālik ibn Dīnār, Farqad al-Sabakhī, Habīb al-‘Ajamī, and their peers. All of these were people of goodness, virtue, and religious devotion, but the narrations of the first group are included among authentic hadiths.

Mālik ibn Anas, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “I met eighty men in this mosque who possessed goodness, virtue, and righteousness. Each would say, ‘My father narrated to me from my grandfather, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.’ Yet we took nothing from any of them. Ibn Shihāb would come to us while still a young man, and we would crowd around his door, because he understood this discipline.”

This was despite Ibn Shihāb’s association with rulers and acceptance of their gifts to an extent that people devoted to asceticism and worship disliked. Allah singles out each group for whatever He chooses. Those devout worshippers related this report to distinguish between deeds that are prescribed and commanded and those that are not.

One version contains the wording, “When Allah created the letters.” Those among the Jahmiyyah who say that the Quran, or its letters, is created cited this as evidence. Ahmad therefore said, “This is disbelief,” because it entails saying that something belonging to the Quran is created. Yet that report has no known chain of transmission, nor