arm, and brought me before him. Again al-Muʿtaṣim ordered them to debate me. “Talk to him!” he said.
So the debate began again. One of them would speak from over here and I would answer him, and another from over there and I’d answer him too. Whenever they mentioned anything not in the Book of God or the sunnah of His Emissary, or in a report about the early Muslims, I would say, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Commander of the Faithful,” they would protest, “when he has an argument against us he stands his ground, but whenever we make a point he says he doesn’t know what we’re talking about.”
“Keep debating him!” said al-Muʿtaṣim.
١٧،٦٩
فقال رجل: يا أحمد أراك تذكر الحديث وتَنْتَحِلُه.
قلتُ : ما تقول في {يُوصيِكُمُ اللهُ في أَوْلادِكُم لِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَظُّ الأُنْثَيَيْنِ}؟ فقال: خصّ الله عزّ وجلّ بها المؤمنين.
فقلتُ: ما تقولُ إن كان قاتلاً أو عَبدًا أو يَهوديًا؟
قال: فسكت. وإنّما احتججتُ عليهم بهذا لأنّهم كانوا يحتجّون بظاهر القرآن وحيث قال لي: أراك تنتحل الحديث.
فلم يزالوا كذلك إلى أن قرُب الزوال فلما ضجر قال لهم: قوموا! وخلا بي وبعبد الرحمن١ بن إسحاق فلم يزل يكلّمني ثمّ قام فدخل ورُدِدْتُ إلى الموضع.
١ هـ ، د: خلا لي ولعبد الرحمن.
“All I see you doing,” said one of them, “is citing Hadith and claiming to know what it means.”
“What do you say,” I asked him, “about the verse «Concerning your children, God enjoins you that a male shall receive a share equivalent to that of two females»?”93
“It applies only to believers,” he said.
I asked him: “What about murderers, slaves, or Jews?”
He fell silent. I had resorted to that tactic for one reason: they had been arguing on the basis of the plain text of the Qurʾan while accusing me of citing Hadith for no good reason.94
They kept at it until nearly noon. When al-Muʿtaṣim had had enough, he sent everyone away except for ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq, who continued to argue with me. Finally al-Muʿtaṣim rose and went back inside, and I was sent back to the place where they had been holding me.
١٨،٦٩
أخبرنا المحمّدان ابن ناصر وابن عبد الباقي قالا: أخبرنا حَمْد قال: حدثنا أبو نُعَيم الحافظ قال: حدثنا سليمان بن أحمد قال: حدثنا عبد الله بن أحمد بن حنبل قال:
كتب إليّ الفتح بن شَخْرَف بخطّ يده قال: قال ابنُ حُطَيط، رجلٌ قد سمّاه من أهل الفضل من أهل خُراسان: حُبِس أحمد بن حنبل وبعض أصحابه في المحنة في دار قبل أن يُضرب.
قال أحمد بن حنبل: فلمّا كان الليل نام من كان معي من أصحابي وأنا متفكّر في أمري قال: فإذا أنا برجل طويل يتخطّى الناس حتى دنا منّي فقال: أنت أحمد بن حنبل؟
فسكتُّ فقالها ثانية فسكتّ فقالها ثالثة: أنت أبو عبد الله أحمد بن حنبل؟
قلتُ: نعم.
قال: أصبِر ولك الجنّة.
قال أحمد: فلمّا مَسّني حَرّ السَّوط ذكرتُ قول الرجل.
We cite the two Muḥammads, Ibn Nāṣir and Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī, who cite Ḥamd, who heard Abū Nuʿaym al-Ḥāfiẓ report that he heard Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad report that he heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s son ʿAbd Allāh report:
[ʿAbd Allāh:] Al-Fatḥ ibn Shakhraf wrote to me in his own hand saying that he heard from Ibn Ḥuṭayṭ—a man of learning from Khurasan, whose name he gave in full—that before Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was flogged, he and some of his fellow victims of the Inquisition were kept in confinement in a house somewhere.
“Night fell,” said Aḥmad, “and the others went to sleep, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen to me. Then I saw a tall man picking his way around the sleepers toward me.
“‘Are you Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal?’ he asked.
“I said nothing and he asked again. When I didn’t answer, he asked a third time: ‘Are you Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Only endure,’ he said, ‘and the Garden is yours.’
“Later, when I felt the burning of the whips, I remembered what he’d told me.”
١٩،٦٩
أخبرنا ابن ناصر قال: أخبرنا ابن يوسف قال: أخبرنا البرمكي قال: حدثنا ابن مردك قال: حدثنا ابن أبي حاتم قال: حدثنا صالح بن أحمد قال:
قال أبي: فلمّا كانت الليلة الثالثة قلت: خليق أن يحدث غدًا من أمري شيء. فقلتُ لبعض من كان معي الموكّل بي: أرتَدْ لي١ خيطًا. فجاءني بخيط فشددتُ به الأقياد ورددتُ التكّة إلى سراويلي مخافة أن يحدث من أمري شيء فأتعرّى.
١ ش: اريد لي.
We
