THE NAME OF GOD, FULL OF COMPASSION, EVER COMPASSIONATE 0.2
Praise God, Who did all things create with skill unmatch’d and chose of men who would come first and who behind. From humankind He raised His prophets and His seers, and of them both did make the righteous scholars heirs. Then of those knowing men did He a lesser number find, and to those few with gen’rous hand a special virtue give. May God bless and keep Muḥammad, of those who alight in desert lands the noblest rider of his race; and bless and save the ones who in joining him touched greatness, and those who followed him in faith, until the Day when He shall set this tott’ring world aright.
I pray, my brothers, that God crown your efforts with success; and I ask you to recall that He, mighty and glorious, made Muḥammad—God bless him and keep him—the most virtuous being in creation, and likewise placed his community above the rest. The reason for this precedence was knowledge: knowing, and acting on what one knows. Examine the life of our Prophet and you will realize that his superiority to other prophets arises from what he knew and how he put that knowledge into practice. Consider, likewise, the sciences of our learned men, and you will readily see how they elude the powers of the rabbis. Note, too, how the devotions of our worshippers put even monks to shame, for devotion restrained by the Law and undertaken against the grain of one’s desires is more arduous—and worthier—than monasticism, which merits no regard. By the grace of God, our community suffers no dearth of knowledge or of action. Even so, when I set out to find people of the Successors’ generation or later who had reached perfection in both respects—in what they knew and how they lived—I found only three whose achievement is perfect and uncompromised: al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Sufyān ibn Saʿīd al-Thawrī, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. 0.3
After compiling one volume on the merits of al-Ḥasan and another on Sufyān, I realized that Aḥmad deserves more attention than either. He gathered more knowledge than they did and suffered more for telling the truth. Several authors, admittedly, have already collected reports of his attainments. Some, however, collected too little material, while others made no effort to organize what they had amassed. I therefore resolved to devote some time to making a proper collection of reports about his manners and merits, so that those who emulate him may know the man whose example they have set out to follow.1 May God grant success! 0.4
CONTENTS
I have divided this book into one hundred chapters, as follows—and may God help me choose aright! 0.5
Chapter 1. Ibn Ḥanbal’s Birth and Family Background
Chapter 4. The Beginning of His Search for Knowledge and the Journey He Undertook for That Purpose
Chapter 5. The Major Men of Learning Whom He Met and on Whose Authority He Recited Hadith
Chapter 6. His Deference to His Teachers and His Respect for Learning
Chapter 7. His Eagerness to Learn and His Single-minded Pursuit of Knowledge
Chapter 8. His Powers of Retention and the Number of Reports He Knew by Heart
Chapter 9. His Learning, His Intelligence, and His Religious Understanding
Chapter 10. Praise of Him by His Teachers
Chapter 11. Teachers and Senior Men of Learning Who Cite Him
Chapter 12. All the Men of Learning Who Cite Him
Chapter 13. Praise of Him by His Peers, His Contemporaries, and Those Close to Him in Age
Chapter 14. Praise of Him by Prominent Successors Who Knew Him Well
Chapter 15. A Report That the Prophet Elijah Sent Him Greetings
Chapter 16. Reports That al-Khaḍir Spoke in His Praise
Chapter 17. Praise of Him by Pious Strangers and Allies of God
Chapter 18. Allies of God Who Visited Him to Seek His Blessing
Chapter 21. His Insistence on Maintaining the Practices of the Early Muslims
Chapter 22. His Reverence for Hadith Transmitters and Adherents of the Sunnah
Chapter 23. His Shunning and Reviling of Innovators and His Forbidding Others to Listen to Them
Chapter 25. His Age When He Began Teaching Hadith and Giving Legal Opinions
Chapter 26. His Devotion to Learning and the Attitudes That Informed His Teaching
