177 – It is cited in al-Ādāb, p. 193, and Abū Nuʿaym also recorded it in Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ, 9/112–113, through Zakariyyā al-Sājī who said, “I heard al-Rabīʿ relate it.”

48 – al-Qaʿnabi, that eminent Imām (d. 221 AH).

204 – Banān ibn Aḥmad said: “We were with al-Qaʿnabi—may Allah have mercy on him—when he heard a man from the Jahmiyyah saying, ‘The All-Merciful has taken possession of the Throne (istawlà).’ Al-Qaʿnabi retorted, ‘Whoever is not certain that the All-Merciful rose over the Throne (istawā), in the way that is firmly lodged in the hearts of ordinary believers, is a Jahmi.’”

Both of these reports were reproduced by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Qaḥīṭī, 1/178, in his compilations.

By “ordinary believers” he meant the generality of the scholars, as we explained in the biography of Yazīd ibn Hārūn, the Imām of Wāsiṭ. Al-Qaʿnabi was himself one of the guides of the ummah; some ḥadīth masters even preferred him to Imām Mālik. He passed away in 221 AH at a little over eighty years of age, and he was the most senior of Muslim’s teachers, without qualification.

178 – So it appears in the printed edition, whereas the manuscript has “al-ʿAjīlī.” Whether this or that, I have not been able to identify this ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. I later found the reading “al-Qaḥīṭī” in the Mukhtaṣar, matching the printed copy.

Banān ibn Aḥmad is acceptable; he has a biography in Tārīkh Baghdād, 7/100.

49 – ʿAffān, one of the luminaries of the Sunnah (d. after 219 AH).

205 – Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: “Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyā ibn ʿĪsā narrated to us; Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bakr al-Simsār told me: I heard ʿAffān ibn Muslim, after he had returned from the residence of Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm, where he had been tested about the Quran. He said: ‘He wrote to me, “I will cut off your stipend if you consent to say that the Quran is created.” I replied, I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan—“They want to change the words of Allah,” “Allah—there is no deity but Him, the Living, the Sustainer,” “Say: He is Allah, the One.” Is this created? I met Shuʿbah, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, and the companions of al-Ḥasan, and all of them used to say: The Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated.’”