—that is, there is no confidential talk among three people except that He is their fourth by His knowledge.

Muḥyī al-Sunnah was one of the leading imams of the school: ascetic, devout, and God-fearing. He produced the book al-Tahdhīb on the Shāfiʿī madhhab and perfected it, and he authored Sharḥ al-Sunnah.¹ He died in 516 AH, nearly eighty years of age.

162 – Abū al-Ḥasan al-Karajī (458–532 AH)

344 – The scholar Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Shāfiʿī, a companion of Shaykh al-Islām al-Harawī, said in his celebrated creed, which opens with the lines:

The creed of the hadith-folk has risen on high,
its followers holding the faith’s most noble rank;
Their doctrine: that God, in His very essence,
is upon His Throne, yet knows all things unseen;
They affirm His rising is real and intelligible,
while the how of it remains unknown—consigned to Him.²

This ode is long, exceeding two hundred verses. Its composer, al-Karajī, was among the foremost Shāfiʿī jurists. He died in 532 AH.

313 – I remark: he was a jurist free from rigid partisanship. His biography in Shadharāt reads: “He would not recite the qunūt in the Dawn Prayer, saying, ‘No authentic hadith has been established on that.’ He would add, ‘Al-Shāfiʿī said: When a hadith is sound, cast my view against the wall.’”

The hadith whose weakness he hinted at I have documented in al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 1239; refer to it.

163 – Abū al-Qāsim al-Taymī (457–535 AH)

345 – Imām al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Taymī