harm me. Does this not mean that your concern is to pursue the slips of others while forgetting yourself, heedless of the saying: “One of you sees the speck in his brother’s eye, yet does not see the log in his own eye”?!
- He said: “You accused me of lying over an issue, even though lying in its familiar sense does not apply to such matters. If everyone who erred in an issue were a liar, no one would be safe from this—not even you—for such matters revolve around knowledge.”
I say: Yes, no one maintains this as an absolute rule—not even you. But why this equivocation, evasion, and obscuring of the issue? Why did you say, “over an issue,” leaving it indefinite and failing to specify it, then go on filling pages with matters unrelated to the issue? You said in your article: “Its chain includes ʿAṭiyyah ibn Qays al-Ḥimṣī, for he was not known for precision and exactness; no one declared him trustworthy besides Ibn Ḥibbān.” I then said to you: “This is a lie, for Imam Muslim declared him trustworthy,” and so on.
In saying this, I neither violated the Sacred Law nor departed from proper linguistic usage. Rather, I followed the most eloquent of those who spoke the letter ḍād—the Prophet ﷺ—when he said of someone whose error was far less serious than yours, because he had relied upon a general text from the Quran without being aware that the sunnah specified it: “Abū al-Sanābil lied.” (1) So how does your error compare to his, when you did not rely even on the statement of a scholar whom you were obliged to follow? Rather, in this you opposed all the scholars and followed a path other than theirs. Allah is the One whose help is sought.
- Finally, perhaps, he found another point to hold against me, saying:
“4. Then you said: ‘And other such deceptions and sins—not errors...’
“I say: Why this generalization, Shaykh? Why did you not mention some of them to me?”
These are his words. In reply, I say:
As for the general wording, you know its reason, but you feign ignorance of it, for my reply to you in