These people recount stories of misguided scrupulousness, some falsely attributed to the people concerned and others mistaken.

For example, they relate that when Imam Ahmad’s son Sālih became a judge, Ahmad would not have bread baked in his son’s house. When his family baked bread in his son’s oven, he refused to eat it, so they threw it into the Tigris; thereafter, he would not eat anything caught in the Tigris.

This is among the most outrageous lies and fabrications against such an imam. Only someone utterly ignorant, or exceptionally cunning in deceiving people and scheming to obtain their wealth, would behave like this. Allah kept him free of both. Every scholar knows that his son did not become a judge during his lifetime, but only after his death. Rather, the caliph al-Mutawakkil had awarded his children and household grants from the public treasury. Abū Abd Allāh instructed them not to accept the ruler’s grants, but they pleaded their need, and some of them accepted. He therefore refrained from eating food purchased with their wealth or using their fires to bake bread or heat water, because they had accepted the ruler’s grants.

They asked him about this money: “Is it unlawful?”

“No,” he replied.

“May we use it to perform Hajj?” they asked.

“Yes,” he replied. He explained that he abstained from it only lest it lead him to become involved with the caliph in pursuing the latter’s wishes. As the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Accept a grant so long as it is simply a grant. But if it becomes payment in exchange for your religion, do not accept it.”

Even if blood, carrion, pork, and every unlawful thing in existence were thrown into the Tigris, neither its catch nor the river itself would become unlawful. Some people have been led by excessive scrupulousness to adopt a course of action based on their own earnest judgment