(1) Ibn Abidin, Hashiyah (1/63) and his epistle Rasm al-Mufti (1/4 of the Collected Epistles); Shaykh Salih al-Fulani, Iqaz al-Himam (p. 62); and others. Ibn Abidin quotes from Sharh al-Hidayah by Ibn al-Shihnah al-Kabir—the teacher of Ibn al-Humam—the following: “When a hadith is sound and contradicts the school’s view, the hadith must be followed and that then counts as the imam’s view; acting on it does not remove his follower from being a Hanafi. It is reliably reported that Abu Hanifah said: ‘When a hadith is sound, that is my position.’ Imam Ibn Abd al-Barr transmitted this from Abu Hanifah and from other imams.” I say: This shows the perfection of their knowledge and piety, for by it they acknowledged that they had not encompassed the whole of the sunnah—as Imam al-Shafi‘i explicitly stated, as will be mentioned—so something might issue from them that conflicts with a hadith that had not reached them. They therefore instructed us to hold fast to such hadiths and to regard them as part of their own school. May Allah have mercy on them all. (2) Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Intiqa fi Fada’il al-Thalathah al-A’immah al-Fuqaha (p. 145); Ibn al-Qayyim, I‘lam al-Muwaqqi‘in (2/309); Ibn Abidin, Hashiyah on al-Bahr al-Raiq (6/293) and Rasm al-Mufti (pp. 29, 32); al-Sha‘rani, al-Mizan (1/55) for the second narration. The third narration is related by ‘Abbas al-Duri in the Tarikh of Ibn Ma‘in (6/77/1) with an authentic chain from Zufar. Something similar is also reported from his companions—Zufar, Abu Yusuf and ‘Afiyah b. Yazid—as in Iqaz (p. 52). Ibn al-Qayyim (2/344) affirms its authenticity from Abu Yusuf. Additional details appear in the marginalia to Iqaz (p. 65), quoting Ibn Abd al-Barr, Ibn al-Qayyim and others. I say: If this is what they said about the one who does not know their evidence, then—alas!—what would they say about the one who knows that