away from the Book of Allah and the sunnah of His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him—as can be seen today, regrettably, among the masses of those committed to particular legal schools, including many doctoral degree holders and graduates of Sharia colleges. All of them make adherence to a legal school part of their religion and declare it obligatory upon people—even upon scholars among them. Thus their leading figure, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Karkhī the Ḥanafī, made his well-known statement: “Every verse that conflicts with the position of our companions is either interpreted away or abrogated; and every hadith that does so is likewise either interpreted away or abrogated.” (1)

They have made the legal school the foundation and the Noble Quran subordinate to it. That, without any doubt or hesitation, is the Mathnah.

As for what occurs in al-Nihāyah after the hadith, explaining the Mathnah: “It has been said that the Mathnah consists of the accounts of the Children of Israel after Moses, peace be upon him: they compiled a book among themselves according to their own desires, apart from the Book of Allah; this, then, is the Mathnah. It is as though Ibn ʿAmr disliked taking knowledge from the People of the Book, although he possessed books of theirs that had come into his hands on the day of Yarmūk. He said this because of his knowledge of what they contained”—I say: this explanation is extremely remote from the apparent meaning of the hadith. The Mathnah is one of the signs of the approaching Hour, and therefore has no connection with what the Jews did before the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was sent. Hence Ibn al-Athīr indicated that this explanation is weak by introducing it with the phrase, “It has been said.” Even weaker is what he mentioned immediately afterward: “Al-Jawharī said: The Mathnah is what is called in Persian dūbaytī. It is singing!”