4 – Imam Aḥmad, may Allah have mercy on him, said, “Do not follow me blindly, nor Mālik, nor al-Shāfiʿī, nor al-Awzāʿī, nor al-Thawrī; rather, take from the same sources from which they took.”

It is also widely reported from them that they said, “If a ḥadīth is authentic, then that is my madhhab.”

Many other such statements are transmitted from them, and I have cited a fine selection of them in the introduction to my book Ṣifat Ṣalāt al-Nabī (The Prophet’s Prayer Described), peace and blessings be upon him and his family,1 and what we have mentioned here is sufficient.