Moreover, Allah singled Moses out for an honor beyond His pleasure, saying:

“And I bestowed upon you love from Me that you would be brought up under My eye.”

Furthermore, addressing him as “O son of ‘Imrān” differs from the manner of address Allah records in the Quran, where He says, “O Moses.” That other manner of address evidently carries a measure of disparagement.

Another example is the report that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allah be pleased with him, wrote to Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī:

“To proceed: All goodness lies in contentment. If you can be content, then do so; otherwise, be patient.”

These are fine words, even though their chain of transmission is unknown. Since the reports he cites—with chains of transmission, with disconnected chains, or with the opening links omitted—include both authentic material and otherwise, this particular saying must be considered accordingly: he attributes it to Abū Sulaymān only through a disconnected report. By common agreement, such a report cannot establish its attribution to Abū Sulaymān.

Although some maintain that a disconnected report constitutes proof, here it is not known how such a report stands in relation to weak and non-weak reports. Once that is known, however, it no longer constitutes proof, by scholarly consensus—as with someone known sometimes to remember the chain correctly and sometimes to err in it.

The books that provide chains of transmission for accounts and sayings of these shaykhs—such as Abū Nu‘aym’s Hilyat al-Awliyā’ (The Adornment of the Saints), Abū ‘Abd al-Rahmān’s Tabaqāt al-Sūfiyya (The Generations of the Sufis), Ibn al-Jawzī’s Safwat al-Safwa (The Choicest of the Chosen), and similar works—do not mention this saying as something attributed to Shaykh Abū Sulaymān.

Consider what he did transmit from him with a chain of transmission, saying: “He said to Ahmad ibn Abī al-Hawārī: ‘O Ahmad, I have indeed been granted, of contentment,