anything through His servants’ learning. Rather, what is meant is that my knowledge and yours stand in relation to Allah’s knowledge as the water clinging to the sparrow’s beak stands in relation to the sea.

The inheritance of knowledge belongs to this same category, as in the saying:

“Scholars are the heirs of the prophets.”

Likewise, His saying:

“Solomon inherited from David.”

The inheritance of the Book is another example, as in His saying:

“Then We gave the Book as an inheritance to those We chose from among Our servants.”

Expressions such as “diminishing” and the like are used in such cases, even though the original knowledge remains intact.

For example, Qatādah stayed with Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib for a week, asking him important questions, until Saʿīd marvelled at his memory and said to him: “You have drained me, blind man!” Draining a well or the like means drawing out its contents until nothing remains.

It is well known that even if Qatādah had learned everything Saʿīd knew, Saʿīd’s knowledge would not have disappeared from his heart as water disappears from a well. But it may be said that teaching takes place through speech, and speech requires movement and other things that arise in the subject and pass away from it. Hence speech is described as issuing from the speaker, as the Most High says:

“Grave is the word that comes out of their mouths; they speak nothing but a lie.”

It is also said: “The scholar has transmitted this hadith, but has not transmitted that one.” Thus, if teaching knowledge takes place through speech that necessarily entails the passing away of some of what subsists in the subject—and this constitutes a draining and an issuing forth—then Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib’s words would bear their literal meaning. Their import is that, during those seven nights, owing to his many answers and his speaking to Qatādah, certain things that had subsisted in him departed from him, namely movements and sounds;