[Author’s Introduction]

In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

My Lord, make it easy and do not make it difficult.

Shaykh, Imam, and scholar Abu Muhammad Abd al-Qadir ibn Abd Allah al-Ruhawi narrated to us: Shaykh, Imam, scholar, and hadith master Abu Tahir Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Silafi al-Isfahani informed us: Our shaykh, Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Zakariyya al-Turaythithi, informed us in Baghdad: Shaykh Abu al-Qasim Hibat Allah ibn al-Hasan ibn Mansur al-Tabari, the hadith master, narrated to you in Rabi al-Awwal of the year 416 AH, saying:

Praise be to Allah, who has manifested and made clear the truth; who has disclosed and clarified His path; who guides whomever He wills among His creation to His way, opening his breast thereby; who delivers him from misguidance when he has come close to it; who preserves and protects him from tribulation in his religion; who rescues him from the precipices of ruin; who establishes and makes him steadfast upon the paths of guidance; who grants him certainty in following His Messenger and his Companions, and enables him to do so; and who guards his heart against the whisperings of religious innovation and supports him.