each group placing before itself a small heap of pebbles with which it counted its repetitions of tasbih and takbir—too well known to require further detail (see my Rejoinder to Shaykh al-Habashi). He ﵁ would also say, “Follow and do not innovate; you have been spared—hold fast to the ancient way,” and other reports of like purport that are recorded in their proper places. In particular, it is soundly established that when he taught the tashahhud he would even censure his companions over the presence of the letters alif and waw. This was related by Ibn Abi Shaybah (1/294) and al-Tahawi (1/157) with a sahih chain. Thus the very Companions who knew the Prophet’s ﷺ wording for sending peace upon him in the tashahhud continued, after his death, to say: “al-salam ʿala al-nabiy (peace be upon the Prophet).” ʿAbd al-Razzaq transmits this with a sound chain from ʿAta ibn Abi Rabah, as al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar notes (to be cited later, p. 162; cf. above, p. 884). Because a text of this strength breaks the back of al-Ghumari and those of similar inclination, he stubbornly tried to invalidate it, asserting (p. 14): “Ibn Jurayj narrates it with ʿanʿanah in the Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzaq (2:204); Ibn Jurayj is a mudallis, so what he narrates with ʿanʿanah is unacceptable.” The answer has two aspects: 1. Yes, Ibn Jurayj did practice tadlis, but it is authentically reported from him that he said, “If I say, ‘Qala ʿAta,’ I heard it from him, even if I do not add ‘I heard.’” Hence his phrase “ʿan ʿAta” is tantamount to “Qala ʿAta,” and the absence of an explicit hearing causes no harm—as is evidently the case. This appears to be among the reasons why the Two Shaykhs included his ʿanʿanah reports from ʿAta. 2. Al-Ghumari ignored—true to his habit of blurring the facts—that in the version cited by al-Hafiz from ʿAbd al-Razzaq, Ibn Jurayj actually says, “Akhbarani ʿAta,” eliminating any suspicion of tadlis; for that reason al-Hafiz declared the chain sound. Al-Ghumari was therefore obliged either to concede all of this or to refute the authentication convincingly; he did neither, preferring instead the popular proverb, “Running away is half of bravery!”