Muḥammad ibn Salamah al-Balkhī narrated to us: Bishr ibn al-Walīd narrated to us: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Salamah narrated to us, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, from him. Bishr ibn al-Walīd is weak, and I have not identified al-Balkhī.

A second supporting narration is reported from Abū Hurayrah, attributed to the Prophet. Ibn al-Najjār recorded it in Dhayl Tārīkh Baghdād (10/192/1) with a very weak chain of transmission containing a number of men whom I have not identified. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, the Sufi, is accused of fabricating hadiths.

A third supporting narration is reported from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording: “Do not reflect upon Allah; rather, reflect upon Allah’s creation. For our Lord created an angel whose feet are in the lowest, seventh earth, while his head has passed beyond the highest heaven. The distance from his feet to his knees is a journey of six hundred years, and the distance from his heels to the soles of his feet is a journey of six hundred years. The Creator is greater than the created being.”

Abū Nuʿaym recorded it in al-Ḥilyah (6/66–67) through ʿAbd al-Jalīl ibn ʿAṭiyyah, from Shahr, from him.

I say: This is a good chain for purposes of corroboration. ʿAbd al-Jalīl and Shahr—who is Ibn Ḥawshab—are both truthful, though poor in retention; the rest of the narrators are reliable.

There are also reports on this subject from Abū Dharr and Ibn ʿAbbās, recorded by Abū al-Shaykh. The latter was also recorded by Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ḥilyah, as stated in al-Jāmiʿ, though I have not seen it in the index to al-Ḥilyah.

Al-Bayhaqī also recorded in al-Asmāʾ wa-al-Ṣifāt (p. 420), through ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAlī, who said: My father narrated to us, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās, as attributed to the Companion, with the wording: “Reflect upon everything, but do not reflect upon the Essence of Allah, exalted and glorified is He. For between the seventh heaven and His Kursī are seven thousand lights, and He is above that.”