And Ismā‘īl ibn ‘Ulayyah related: “I was walking with al-Shāfi‘ī, may Allah have mercy on him, in the midday heat. We passed a place where someone was reciting something, and he said, ‘Let us go over to him.’ Then he asked, ‘Does this delight you?’ I replied, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You have no beauty in you.’”

I say: He had no need to substantiate matters of sensory experience with a fabricated story about al-Shāfi‘ī. Ismā‘īl ibn ‘Ulayyah was al-Shāfi‘ī’s teacher, not someone who would accompany him on his walks. Nor did he transmit this account from al-Shāfi‘ī; rather, al-Shāfi‘ī transmitted from him, and he was among al-Shāfi‘ī’s most distinguished teachers.

His son, Ibrāhīm ibn Ismā‘īl, was a speculative theologian and a student of ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn Kaysān al-Asamm, one of the leading teachers of the Mu‘tazilah. He had gone to Egypt, and such antagonism existed between him and al-Shāfi‘ī that al-Shāfi‘ī used to say of him:

“I disagree with Ibn ‘Ulayyah about everything, even the declaration ‘There is no god but Allah.’ For I say, ‘There is no god but Allah, who spoke to Moses from behind a veil,’ whereas he says, ‘There is no god but Allah, who created speech in the air for Moses to hear.’”

This man is credited with the first treatise on the principles of jurisprudence, and some people think that his son is being confused