723 - 'Ismah ibn 'Asim informed me, saying: Hanbal said: "I wanted to write down the book of Siffin and al-Jamal from Khalaf ibn Salim, so I came to Abu 'Abd Allah [Ahmad ibn Hanbal] to speak to him about that and ask him. He said: 'What will you do with that, when there is neither halal nor haram in it? I wrote with Khalaf when he was writing it, and I wrote the chains of narration (asanid) and left the discussions (kalam), while Khalaf wrote them [the discussions]. I was also present at the gathering of Ghundar and we met with him, so I wrote the chains of narration of the hadith of Shu'bah, and Khalaf wrote them as they were.' I said to him: 'Why did you write the chains of narration and leave the discussions?' He replied: 'I wanted to know what Shu'bah had narrated from them.' Hanbal said: 'I went to Khalaf and wrote them down, and this reached Abu 'Abd Allah, so he said to my father: "Take the book and keep it away from him; do not let him look at it.""