and to stay with him. Ahmad feared that he might succumb to the temptations of this world, so he ceased narrating hadith altogether in order to remain safe from that. Moreover, because (1) he had already narrated all the material in his possession, he would thereafter mention a hadith together with the portion of its chain following his teachers, but would not say, “So-and-so narrated to us.” Those who heard this from him would delight in transmitting it from him.

Al-Qatīʿī, however, narrated additions from his own teachers, many of which (2) are fabricated lies. This group came into possession of the book but did not examine what it contained regarding the virtues of the rest (3) of the Companions. Instead, they confined themselves to what it contained regarding the virtues of ʿAlī (4). Whenever al-Qatīʿī added a hadith, they assumed that its speaker was Ahmad ibn Hanbal, for they knew neither the narrators nor their generations, nor did they understand that Ahmad (5) could not possibly have narrated anything from al-Qatīʿī’s teachers.

Moreover, they (6), in their profound ignorance, had heard of no book other than the Musnad. When they assumed that Ahmad had narrated it and that he narrated only in (7) the Musnad, they began saying of whatever al-Qatīʿī narrated, “Ahmad narrated it in the Musnad.” This assumes that they did not go beyond al-Qatīʿī by adding material that he had not narrated, for lying on their part (8) cannot be ruled out. Accordingly, the authors of al-Tarāʾif and al-ʿUmda cite hadiths that they attribute (9) to Ahmad, though Ahmad narrated them in neither of those two works, nor had anyone (10) heard them