Abu ʿUthman said—al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Ḥakīm related to me—that Muʿāwiyah declared, “Allah and His Messenger have spoken the truth: ‘Whoever desires the present life and its finery, We shall repay them in full for their deeds therein, and they shall not be deprived’ [Hud 15] … until His words, ‘and futile is all that they used to do’ [al-Aʿrāf 139].”

Abu ʿAbd-Allah commented: “One of the evidences that supports al-Shaʿbī’s view on the permissibility of selling Qur’an codices—namely, that a person is only selling the work of his own hands—is the statement of Ziyād ibn Labīd (may Allah be pleased with him) addressed to the Prophet ﷺ: ‘How can knowledge be taken away when it has been recorded and hearts have retained it?’”