guidance, and the reins of piety, and grant them abundant peace.
As for what follows,
A questioner asked me, saying: "I would like you to compile what has been reported regarding the affirmation of Al-Ḥadd for God Almighty," and he means by that: Al-Ḥadd that no one knows except God.
As for whoever claims that God, Mighty and Majestic, has Al-Ḥadd known to other than Him; he is: misguided, misguiding, an innovator.
So I responded to that, and I compiled in this book of mine a small amount of the school of law of the scholars of the Predecessors and their imams, and what was narrated and authenticated from them, and what they used as evidence for that from the Book and the Sunna, and what they mentioned in their books and compilations.
Among them: Imam ʿAbd Allāh [2/b] b. al-Mubārak, and Imam Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (1), and Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh (2), and ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd
As for other than our Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him; he, peace and blessings of God be upon him, said: "...You will not see your Lord until you die."
[Narrated by Aḥmad (5/324) and al-Nasāʾī (7764), and its chain of transmission is Sahih (Authentic)]
Al-Barbahārī, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Sharḥ al-Sunna (51): "Whoever claims that he sees his Lord in the abode of this world is a disbeliever in God, Mighty and Majestic." End quote.
(1) Ibn Muḥammad bin Ḥanbal, died in the year 241 AH, may Allah have mercy on him, and he is the Imam of the people of the Sunna and the congregation. al-Shāfiʿī, may Allah have mercy on him, said: "Aḥmad is an Imam in the Sunna."
(2) Isḥāq bin Ibrāhīm bin Makhlad al-Tamīmī al-Ḥanẓalī al-Marwazī, Abū Yaʿqūb, known as Ibn Rāhwayh, died in the year 238 AH, may Allah have mercy on him. Aḥmad bin Ḥanbal, may Allah have mercy on him, said: "Is someone like Isḥāq asked about! Isḥāq, in our view, is an Imam among the Imams of the Muslims." And he said: "I do not know of any equal to Isḥāq in Iraq."
