of the world.’

Al-Maimūnī said: I heard ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī remark, ‘After the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), no one ever rose to serve Islam as Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal did.’

I asked him, ‘Abū al-Ḥasan, not even Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq?!’

He replied, ‘Not even Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq. Abū Bakr had assistants and companions, whereas Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal had neither helpers nor companions.’¹

Al-Shāfiʿī said: ‘I left Baghdad and did not leave behind anyone more God-fearing, more scrupulously pious, more profoundly versed in jurisprudence, or more knowledgeable than Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal…’

Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Dāramī said: ‘I have never seen any black-haired man with a better memory for the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), or a deeper grasp of its jurisprudence and meanings, than Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.’²

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī also said about Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal: ‘In my estimation he is superior to Saʿīd ibn Jubayr in his own time, for Saʿīd had peers, whereas this man has no equal.

He further declared: “Allah has supported this religion with two men, and there is no third: Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq on the Day of the Apostasy, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal on the Day of the Ordeal.”³’

Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām said: ‘Knowledge has come to rest with four men: Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, …’