yielding him benefit year after year. Nor does he give an aged animal, one afflicted with mange, a sick animal, or an inferior, worthless one; rather, he gives from the average quality of his wealth. For Allah has neither asked you for its best nor commanded you to give its worst.”

Abū Dāwūd (1/250) transmitted it, saying: I read in the book of ʿAbd Allah ibn Sālim, in Hims, held by the family of ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith al-Ḥimṣī, from al-Zubaydī, who said: Yaḥyā ibn Jābir informed me, from Jubayr ibn Nufayr, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Ghāḍirī, attributed to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with this wording.

I say: This is a chain whose narrators are trustworthy, but it is interrupted between Ibn Jābir and Jubayr. Al-Ṭabarānī, however, connected it in al-Muʿjam al-Ṣaghīr (p. 115), as did al-Bayhaqī in al-Sunan (4/95), through two routes from ʿAbd Allah ibn Sālim, from Muḥammad ibn al-Walīd al-Zubaydī, who said: Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Ṭāʾī narrated to us that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr ibn Nufayr told him that his father narrated it to him. He added: “And he purifies his soul.” A man then asked: “What is the purification of the soul?” He replied: “That he knows that Allah, exalted is He, is with him wherever he may be.”

I say: This is an authentic chain. Its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of Muslim, apart from ʿAbd Allah ibn Sālim al-Zubaydī, who is nevertheless trustworthy. Al-Bukhārī also transmitted it in his Tārīkh through the route of Yaḥyā ibn Jābir, as cited in the biographical entry on al-Ghāḍirī in al-Iṣābah.

A benefit: Regarding the Prophet’s saying, peace and blessings be upon him: “Allah is with him wherever he may be,” Imām Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī said: “What is meant is that Allah’s knowledge encompasses every place, while Allah is above the Throne.” Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī cited this in al-ʿUluww, biographical entry no. 73, in my edited and abridged edition.

As for the statement of the common people and many of the learned—“Allah is present in every place,” or “throughout all existence”—by which they mean His very Essence, it is misguidance. Indeed, it is derived from the doctrine of the unity of existence, professed by the extremists among the Sufis, who do not distinguish between the Creator and the created, and whose leading figure says: “Everything you see with your eye is Allah!” Exalted is Allah far above what they say.