Shaykh al-Imām Muḥyī al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿAṣrūn al-Tamīmī related to us—through my own recitation to him while he listened—in the year 682 AH, together with Abū Ḥāmid al-Ṣābūnī.
They said: Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Faḍl al-Ḥarastānī informed us; Abū Muḥammad Ṭāhir ibn Sahl al-Isfarāʾīnī informed us; Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Makkī al-Azdī informed us; Qāḍī Abū al-Ḥusayn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yazīd al-Ḥalabī informed us in the year 390 AH; Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Saʿīd al-Qāḍī narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jābir al-Kalāʿī narrated to us; Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Wuḥāẓī narrated to us; al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Sulaymān narrated to us, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, who said:
The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said:
“Allah does not remove knowledge by wrenching it out of the hearts of the people; rather, He removes it by taking away the scholars. When no scholar remains, people appoint the ignorant as leaders; they are consulted, so they issue legal opinions without knowledge, and thus they stray and lead others astray.”
We were also informed with a higher chain by Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Bukhārī: Ibn Tabarzad informed us; Qāḍī Abū Bakr informed us; ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Bāqillānī informed us; Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Warrāq narrated to us.