13 – ‘Abd Allah narrated to us; Sa‘id ibn Muhammad al-Jarmi narrated to us; Abu Tumaylah narrated to us. He said: Abu Ja‘far the Grammarian narrated to me; ‘Abd Allah ibn Thabit narrated to us; Sakhr ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Buraydah narrated to us; from his father; from his grandfather, who said:

While he was sitting in Kufah in a gathering with his companions, he said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: ‘Some eloquence is a kind of sorcery; some knowledge is ignorance; some poetry is wisdom; and some speech is a burden.’”

Sa‘sa‘ah ibn Suḥan—who was the youngest of those present—remarked, “Allah and His Messenger have spoken the truth; even had he not said it, it would still be so.”

One of the attendees studied him and, after the people had dispersed, asked, “What made you say, ‘The Prophet of Allah has spoken the truth, and even if he had not said it, it would still be so’?”

He replied, “Indeed. As for the Prophet of Allah’s statement, ‘Some eloquence is a kind of sorcery,’ a man against whom the right lies may be more skilful in argument than the one who is actually in the right; he beguiles the people with his eloquence, and the right is lost though it was against him.

“As for his saying, ‘Some knowledge is ignorance,’ it refers to the scholar who overreaches his learning into matters he does not know, and that makes him ignorant.

“As for his saying, ‘Some poetry is wisdom,’ it is these admonitions and proverbial sayings by which people exhort one another.

“And as for his saying, ‘Some speech is a burden,’ it is when you press your words and conversation upon someone to whom they are of no concern and who does not wish—”