85—Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr informed us; Muhammad ibn Makhlad reported to us; Ayyub ibn al-Walid narrated to me; Abu Mu'awiyah reported to us; al-A'mash narrated to us, from Jami' ibn Shaddad, from al-Aswad ibn Hilal, who said: Abdullah said:

“Indeed, the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, and the finest speech is the speech of Allah. You will introduce matters, and matters will be introduced for you; thus every newly introduced matter is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.”

A written sheet containing a hadith was brought to him. He said, “He ordered that it be erased, then washed, then burned. Then he said:

“By this, the People of the Book before you perished: they cast the Book of Allah behind their backs as though they did not know. I adjure by Allah any man who knows it to be in anyone’s possession to inform me of it. By Allah, were I to know that it was in Dayr Hind, I would make my way to it.”