discuss speech in general and its division into nouns, verbs, and particles; or speak in praise of silence, or about Allah having permitted speech and utterance, and similar matters that do not address the unclear point under dispute.

With this understood, know that in the early era of the three favored generations, none of those distinguished by religious devotion, righteousness, asceticism, and worship—in the Hijaz, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, the Maghrib, Iraq, or Khurasan—would gather for such listening to whistling and clapping, whether accompanied by a frame drum, handclapping, or the beating of a stick. This was only introduced later, toward the end of the second century AH. When the imams encountered it, they condemned it.

Al-Shāfi'ī—may Allah be pleased with him—said: “I left behind in Baghdad something introduced by the heretics, which they call ‘taghbīr’ (devotional chanting), by which they turn people away from the Quran.”

Yazīd ibn Hārūn said: “None but an openly sinful person engages in taghbīr. And since when has there been taghbīr?”

Imam Ahmad was asked about it and said: “I dislike it; it is an innovation.”

He was asked: “Should we sit with them?”

He replied: “No.”

Likewise, the other imams of religion disapproved of it, and the foremost righteous shaykhs did not attend it. Neither Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, al-Fudayl ibn 'Iyād, Ma'rūf al-Karkhī, Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī, Ahmad ibn Abī al-Hiwārī, al-Sarī al-Saqatī, nor others like them attended it. As for those who did attend it from among the