the knowledge of Allah, he answered, “Allah’s knowledge is with us while He is upon His Throne.” When he was questioned about the Quran he said, “It is the speech of Allah.” He was then asked, “Is it created?” He replied, “No.”

61 – The Wife of Makkī

221 – Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Abbār said: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Balkhī narrated to us. Makkī ibn Ibrāhīm said:

A woman from the followers of Jahm came in to my wife and said, “O Umm Ibrāhīm, this husband of yours who relates traditions about the Throne—who fashioned him?” She replied, “The same One who fashioned your teeth!” (His narrator adds:) Her teeth were conspicuously prominent.

194 – This is how the name appears in both the printed edition and the manuscript, but I believe it is a slip; the correct form is Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr al-Balkhī. The scholars list him among those who reported from Makkī ibn Ibrāhīm. He is Abū ʿAbd-Allāh al-Sawwāq, a reliable authority and one of al-Bukhārī’s shaykhs, just as Makkī ibn Ibrāhīm himself is reliable. Al-Abbār, too, is a trustworthy, precise ḥāfiẓ, as al-Khaṭīb stated (4/306).

62 – Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd, the leading teacher of Khurāsān (150–240 AH)

222 – Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim and Abū Bakr al-Naqqāsh the exegete— the wording is al-Naqqāsh’s—said: Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj told us: I heard Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd say:

“This is the creed of the Imams of Islam and of the sunnah and the jamaʿah: We acknowledge our Lord to be in the seventh heaven, upon His Throne, as the Exalted said, ‘The Most Merciful rose over the Throne’ (Q 20:5).”

Mūsā ibn Hārūn likewise transmitted from Qutaybah that he said, “We acknowledge our Lord to be in the seventh heaven, upon His Throne.”

Thus Qutaybah—renowned for his leadership and integrity—conveyed the consensus on this question. He met Mālik, al-Layth, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, and other senior scholars, lived a long life, and the ḥadith masters thronged to his door. He once said to a man, “Stay with us this winter and I will dictate to you one hundred thousand ḥadiths from five men.” He died in 240 AH.