265 - Abu Bakr al-Marwudhi informed us, saying: I heard Abu 'Abd Allah [Ahmad ibn Hanbal] say: Mujahid said: "I recited the Qur'an to Ibn 'Abbas three times." Abu Bakr al-Khallal said: I read the book Al-Sunnah in Tarsus several times in the congregational mosque and elsewhere for years. When it was the year 292, I read it in the congregational mosque, and I read therein the mention of the Praiseworthy Station [al-Maqam al-Mahmud]. It reached me that some people who had been expelled to Tarsus from among the companions of al-Tirmidhi the innovator denied it and rejected the virtue of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and made their rejection public. The trustworthy [scholars] testified against them regarding this, so we shunned them and made their situation clear. I wrote to our sheikhs in Baghdad, and they wrote this letter to us, which I read in Tarsus to our companions several times, and the people transcribed it. Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, gladdened the People of Sunnah, and increased them in joy beyond what they already possessed of its correctness and their acceptance of it. This is its text: In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Peace be upon you. I praise Allah to you, besides Whom there is no god. To proceed: Your letter reached us with an explanation of what occurred in your city, and we have written to you with what you should stand by. In Allah we seek help, and upon Him we rely in all matters. Further, we advise you and ourselves to fear Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, and to practice excellence [ihsan], for Allah is with those who fear Him and those who are doers of good. By the fear of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, servants are provided for from where they do not expect, by it Allah the Exalted mandates Paradise for its people, by it one enters His abode, by it one looks upon His Countenance, and by it the guardianship [wilayah] of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, is attained. It is the ultimate nobility, the station of honor, the path of right guidance, the collection of goodness, and the culmination of faith. May Allah make you happy with His obedience—the happiness of one whose deed He is pleased with—may He take charge of you with His protection and care, encompass you with His covering, safeguard you with His granting of success, support you with that which He supported the righteous, grant you the best inheritance of the righteous, make you among the thankful for His favors, and single you out with the most noble worship of the worshippers, Amin, O Lord of the worlds. And may Allah bless Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets and the Leader of the righteous, and all the companions of Muhammad. Our letter, may Allah make you happy with the happiness of one whose deed He is pleased with and whose effort He has thanked, a happiness after which there is no misery, [is from] all the People of Sunnah and the Community. Praise be to Allah who has made you worthy of that, honored you with that through which His reward is earned and one is secured from His punishment. Praise be to Allah in the beginning of our speech and at its end. So it was narrated from Abu Salih, who said: "Praise be to Allah at the beginning of speech and at its end." After praising Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, we begin with the prayer upon Muhammad, His Prophet, Messenger, and Chosen One. So it was narrated by Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: "Do not make me like the rider's drinking vessel; place me at the beginning of the supplication, in the middle of the supplication, and at the end of the supplication." So praise be to Allah as He is worthy and deserving, and may Allah bless the Prophet Muhammad and his family abundantly. To proceed: It has reached us what occurred in your city from a "nabigh" [upstart] who emerged with deviation and the speech of falsehood. He brought about an innovation among you that he invented and legislated into the religion what Allah did not permit. He divided your community with his vile speech and poor wording. Were it not for what Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, commanded His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, regarding giving counsel to the commoners and the elite of the Muslims, and [the Messenger's] encouragement toward that, silence would have sufficed us. But Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, took a covenant from the scholars that they shall make it clear to the people and not conceal it, and that is due to what was narrated from Tamim al-Dari, reaching the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who said: "The religion is sincere advice [nasiha]." They asked: "To whom?" He said: "To Allah, His Messenger, His Book, the leaders of the Muslims, and their community." Therefore, know—may Allah grant us and you success for soundness, right guidance, and correctness—that we are satisfied for you, in following the Sunnah and speaking by it, with what we are satisfied with for ourselves. I do not intend to oppose you in what I forbid you from; I only intend reform as much as I am able. My success is only by Allah; upon Him I rely, and to Him I return. Let a man fear his Lord and consider his own soul, and choose well for it, as it is the most precious of souls to him, and he is most obligated to that by adhering to the following of his righteous predecessors among the people of knowledge, religion, and piety. So let him emulate their deeds, make them an argument between himself and Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, and imitate them in his religion regarding what they took upon themselves for it. Let a person beware of innovating and inventing by leaning toward whims and speaking with error, lest he destroy his own soul, corrupt his religion, and become lost in his tyranny, straying in the blindness of his ignorance. While he is like that, neither seeking advice from a guide nor obeying one who is set on the right path, his appointed time takes him while he is in that state. We seek refuge in Allah from that. Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, has said: "Indeed, those who dispute concerning the signs of Allah without any authority having come to them—there is nothing in their breasts except pride, which they will never reach." So seek refuge in Allah, for He is the Hearing, the Seeing. That which drove this enemy of Allah—who is stripped [of faith]—to reject this hadith and oppose the Imams and the people of knowledge, and to cast off the religion, is obstinacy and pride, so that it might be said, "So-and-so [is such and such]." We seek refuge in Allah from pride, hypocrisy, and extremism in the religion. That which drove us—may Allah honor you—to write to you is what occurred in your city regarding the rejection of the hadith of Mujahid, may Allah have mercy on him, and their opposing those for whom the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, testified. His saying, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: "The best of you is my generation in which I was sent, then those who follow them." So the people of deviation and hypocrisy leaned toward the speech of the atheists and the innovation of those who lead astray. "To Allah we belong and to Him we shall return." There is no path for these people except expulsion from the city in which they are, just as their companion, the innovator, is banished from the [congregational] mosque and driven out of it; there is no way for him to enter it. That is by the success granted by Allah and His favor, and by the prevention of the authorities—may Allah support him—to him [the innovator]. It is generally known that he is stripped of his intellect, confined to his house, and the children shout at him at every moment. This is little for the people of innovation, whims, and misguidance in the sight of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic. May Allah protect us and you from the misleading trials, and may He keep us and you safe from misleading whims by His favor and power. May He make us and you firm upon the Sunnah and the Community, and the following of the Sheikh Abu 'Abd Allah, may the mercy and pleasure of Allah be upon him. The mention of this Tirmidhi had already faded and decayed; this is merely a type of insinuation and engaging in falsehood. So desist where Allah has made you desist, refrain from that which you have not been tasked to examine, cast off from yourselves what Allah has cast off from you, and do not take the signs of Allah in mockery. Whoever speaks about any of this is merely rubbing against his own religion, afflicting his own self, and taking on what Allah has not required of him. Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, has disciplined the creation and perfected their discipline, and guided them and graced them with their guidance, saying: "And [moreover], this is My path, which is straight, so follow it; and do not follow the [other] ways, for you will be separated from His way. This has He instructed you that you may become righteous." So fear Allah, O servants of Allah, accept His instruction, and refrain from speaking about this, for engaging in it is an innovation and a misguidance. No predecessor has preceded you in it, and no speaker has spoken about it before you. Do you think that you have been guided to what those before you strayed from? Far, far [from the truth]! It is not appropriate for the people of knowledge and awareness of Allah that whenever an ignorant person speaks out of his ignorance, they should answer him, debate him, and argue with him, thereby sharing in his sin and engaging with him in the sea of his errors. If 'Umar ibn al-Khattab had wished to debate Sabigh and gather the companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, for him to debate him, argue with him, and refute him, he would have done so. However, he suppressed his ignorance, struck him painfully, banished him in his hide, and left him choking on his own saliva, his heart broken with regret among the people, driven out, banished, and displaced; he was not spoken to, nor was he sat with, and he was not cured by argument and examination. Rather, he left him suffocating on his heat, not even able to swallow his own saliva, and he forbade people from speaking to him or sitting with him. Such is the ruling for everyone who ventures into the religion of Allah with what Allah has not permitted: that it be made known that he is upon innovation and misguidance, and he should be warned against and forbidden from being spoken to or sat with. Therefore, seek the guidance of knowledge, summon the scholars, and accept their advice. Know that the ignorant person will always be in a state of goodness as long as he finds a scholar to suppress his ignorance and return him to the correct speech and action, if Allah grants him acceptance. But if the ignorant person speaks out of his ignorance and people lack a scholar to refute him with his knowledge, then he has said farewell to the creation, and our Lord, the Most Merciful, is the One sought for help against what they describe. So fear Allah, then fear Allah, O brothers from the People of Sunnah and the Community, and love safety and well-being for your own selves and your religions, for it is your own flesh and blood. Do not expose yourselves to what Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, has forbidden of argumentation and delving into the signs of Allah. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, emphasized this and warned against it, as did the Imams of guidance after him from the companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, whom He was pleased with for the company of His Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and whom He chose for them. Likewise, the followers [Tabi'un] with excellence in every age and time, they forbid argumentation and disputes in the religion, and they warn against that with the most severe warning, until the last of them in that was Abu 'Abd Allah Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal, may Allah be pleased with him and make him pleased. He was the most severe of the people of his time in that regard in speech, the most emphatic in opinion, the most adhering to it for the creation, and the most advising to them. He endured through that the trial of his tribulations, and the adversity and prosperity, and the difficulty and ease, and the severe beating after long imprisonment in the straits of iron. He offered his life for Allah, was generous with life for its people, and preferred death over the most difficult of punishments, content with it as long as he reached what Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, made obligatory upon the scholars of upholding His command, and out of mercy from Him for the creation and compassion for them. So he endured for the greatness of the trial of the world upon his own self, and he bore for the sake of Allah everything that the entire creation was unable to bear the like of or a part of. He took hold of the reins of truth, patient upon the ruggedness of the road and the roughness of the path, unique in his solitude, biting onto the bridle of correctness, generous with the beloved safety for its people, since they could not reach it except by separating from the Sunnah. So he made a covenant with loneliness and found comfort in solitude. He proceeded on his Sunnah, embracing the truth, not turning away from it, content with the truth as a companion, an ally, and a comfort. He was not turned away from that by the opposition of those who opposed him, nor by the enmity of those who showed him enmity. He did not fear the blame of any critic for the sake of Allah; no panic disturbed him, no greed lured him, and no terror caused him to deviate, until he suppressed the falsehood of the creation by what he was patient upon of holding the reins of truth. He did not deem the much he did for Allah to be much, and he was not satisfied for himself with the little. Patient and seeking reward, not retreating, embracing the knowledge of guidance, not abandoning it, until he struck the spark of truth, so the People of Sunnah were illuminated by it and followed him. He uncovered the shame of the innovations and warned against their people, and no one among the people of knowledge disagreed with him until they returned to his view, willingly or unwillingly. They entered through the gate they had exited from, and they returned to the truth they had renounced. They confessed to him the merit of what Allah had favored him with over them, so they conceded to him in submission, and they listened to him and obeyed him, as he was the most fearful of them of Allah, the most considerate of them toward His creation, the most guiding of them to the paths of salvation, and the most preventative of them regarding the places of destruction. While the creation were covered by his light, he would calculate the truth for them and cast off falsehood from them, just as the bellows cast off the dross of iron. Then, a command came to him from Allah, the Mighty and Majestic—as it came to those before him from the allies of Allah and the people of His obedience—and Allah chose him and transferred him to what is with Him. The guides after him were perplexed, and the ignorant were lost in the drunken states of error. After him, may Allah's mercy be upon him, there was someone who set himself up in that station, standing for his schools of thought, defending the People of Sunnah, being severe upon the people of innovation in the realities of matters. He did not turn away from his schools of thought, and no greed of the greedy would defile him. He found comfort in loneliness, unique in his solitude, patient and seeking reward, making manifest the truth upon the people of innovation, compassionate for the People of Sunnah. He was not frightened by the leaning of those who leaned toward other than him, and no greed invited him toward anyone. He was patient through good and evil, trusting in the gifts of Allah to him of the adherence of his companions to him, suppressing the people of innovation, and loving the people of piety. So may the mercy of Allah be upon Abu Bakr al-Marwudhi, and His forgiveness and pleasure; he was loyal to his companion, compassionate toward his companions—the eyes have not seen the like of him. May Allah reward him from a companion and master with goodness. So adhere to the matter upon which Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, took Abu 'Abd Allah, may Allah have mercy upon him, and Abu Bakr al-Marwudhi, for it is the clear religion. Everything these people have invented is innovation and misguidance. So hold fast to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided, and remember the favor of Allah upon you. You must adhere to the Sunnah and leave the innovations and their people. This Tirmidhi the innovator had invented in our city what reached us that occurred in your city. This is a matter that had already decayed and Allah had made it obscure, and made its people and its proponent obscure, and it is not found among the people. His intellect has been taken away—may Allah disgrace him and disgrace his followers. The sheikhs were asked about him during the life of Abu Bakr, may Allah have mercy upon him, and the hadith-scholars of Baghdad, Kufa, and others, and there was not one of them who did not denounce him and dislike of his affair what we have written to you so that you may stand by it. As for what al-'Abbas ibn Muhammad al-Duri said when they asked him about him and his rejection of the hadith of Mujahid: He mentioned that this Tirmidhi who rejected the hadith of Mujahid was never seen by him with a hadith-scholar, nor does he know him to be a seeker [of knowledge], and this hadith is not denied except by an innovating Jahmite. We ask Allah for safety from his innovation and misguidance. How great is the misguidance and innovation he has brought! He set his intention upon a hadith that contains a virtue for the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, so he wanted to remove it and speak against those who narrated it. Yet the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: "A group of my community will not cease to be upon the truth; those who oppose them will not harm them." We warn you against this man, that you should not listen to him, nor to those who speak with his speech, nor should you believe them in anything. For the Sunnah, in our view, is the revival of the mention of this hadith and what is similar to it from what the Jahmiyya reject.