him about reports. One night, Wakīʿ stopped in the doorway with his hands on the jamb and said, “I’m going to test you on the Hadith of Sufyān.” 8.8
“Go ahead,” said Ibn Ḥanbal.
“Have you memorized what Sufyān transmitted citing Salamah ibn Kuhayl … ?” asked Wakīʿ, reciting the Hadith.
“Yes,” said Aḥmad. “We heard Yaḥyā report,” giving the transmitter.
“What about Salamah on such-and-such?”
“We heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān report,” said Aḥmad.
“What about Sufyān from Salamah on such and-such?”
“We heard that from you.”
And so they continued until they had covered all of the reports transmitted by Salamah. Then Aḥmad asked: “Do you know Salamah’s report about … ?” giving the Hadith.
“No,” said Wakīʿ.
Aḥmad then began asking about one report after another. Each time, Wakīʿ was stumped. Aḥmad went through the reports of the other major transmitters one by one. He was still standing there when the servant girl appeared and said, “The morning star”—or “Venus”—“is up!”
[Aḥmad:] Wakīʿ used to recite reports that all had the same chain of transmitters, as if he had memorized them all that way. At night I used to commit ten or fifteen of them to memory.53 8.9
[ʿAbd Allāh:] My father used to tell me, “Take any of the books of Wakīʿ’s collection and tell me what any report says and I’ll tell you the chain of transmitters. Or tell me the chain and I’ll tell you what the report says.”54 8.10
HIS LEARNING, HIS INTELLIGENCE, AND HIS RELIGIOUS UNDERSTANDING
[Abū l-Qāsim al-Jabbulī:] Most people think that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal became famous largely because of what he did during the Inquisition, but that’s not so. It was because you could ask him about any issue and he would answer as if he had all the learning in the world laid out before him. 9.1
[Al-Ḥarbī]: I lived to see three men like no other: men unlike any of woman born. The first was Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām. The only thing I can compare him to is a mountain filled with the breath of life. The second was Bishr ibn al-Ḥārith. The only way to describe him is to say that all of him, from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet, seemed to have been kneaded from the clay of self-restraint. The third was Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. To me he seemed to have gathered the learning of ancient times and latter days alike, of whatever kind, so that he could say as much as he wanted or keep back whatever he wished. 9.2
[Al-Dārimī:] I never saw a dark-headed man55 learn more Hadith reports of God’s Emissary (God bless and keep him) by heart, nor reach a better understanding of everything they meant, than Aḥmad did. 9.3
[Ibn Rāhawayh:] In Iraq I used to study with Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, and my own cohort. We used to test each other on Hadith by asking about the chain of transmitters—or the two or three different chains—that might exist for a single report. Then Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn would speak up and offer yet another chain. “We all agree on that one, don’t we?” I would ask, and they would all say they did. Then I would ask, “What does the report mean? How would you explain it? And what implications can we draw from it?” 9.4
At that, everyone would fall silent except for Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.
[Ibn Yūnus:] I heard Abū ʿĀṣim say, when the topic of religious understanding was raised, “There’s no one there”—in Baghdad—“except that man,” meaning Aḥmad. “No one’s ever come to us from there who understands as well as he does.” 9.5
Someone then mentioned ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, but Abū ʿĀṣim waved his hand dismissively.
[Al-Kūfī:] Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn was once asked a question about living in a shop. “I don’t deal with that,” he replied. “Ask Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.” 9.6
Al-Khallāl said that Aḥmad copied down the books of rationalist jurisprudence and memorized them, but then stopped consulting them. Whenever he spoke about religious understanding, he did so with the air of a man who had tested all the forms of knowledge and could speak from experience. 9.7
Ḥubaysh ibn Mubashshir and a number of other jurists said, “When we debate, we’re willing to challenge anyone except Ibn Ḥanbal. With him, all we can do is keep quiet.” 9.8
[Al-Ḥarbī:] Aḥmad [ibn Ḥanbal] was asked whether a Muslim should say “May God grace you!” to a Christian. 9.9
“Yes,” he said. “He should say it, and mean by it ‘May God grace you by making you Muslim!’”56
He was also asked whether a man who has sworn three binding oaths to have intercourse with his wife that night, or divorce her, discovers that she is menstruating.
“He must divorce her and not have intercourse,” he replied. “God has permitted divorce but forbidden intercourse with a menstruating woman.”57
Abū l-Wafāʾ ʿAlī ibn ʿAqīl (may God be pleased with him) said:58 9.10
One of the surprising things you hear ignorant young men say is that Aḥmad was no good at religious understanding, only Hadith transmission. That claim is as ignorant as any they could make, and they make it because they don’t understand his method of using Hadith to reach decisions about the preferable course of action. Certainly, his rulings are more nuanced than any we have seen them produce. This is not even to mention his superior mastery of Hadith itself, which they themselves concede. More than once he joined them for Hadith sessions and outdid the best of them.
A particularly intricate ruling of his concerns the fact that his views differed about the division of a debt that is the liability of two persons. They did not differ in regard to the rejection of the validity of the division of a debt that is the liability of one person. The point seems to be that, if it is a single liability, it is not subject to division. This is because the one who incurred the indebtedness is one person, and one of the two partners who are owed the debt has only the right to demand payment according to his rights under the partnership—he may do nothing else, so how could the liability be subject to division? But that is not the case when the debt is the obligation of two persons. That is because one of the two partners who are owed the debt may, on his own, seek recourse against the liability of one of the two who owe the debt. In such a case the division is valid, because one of the two sources of payment is distinguishable from the other. As for his view according to which such a division is precluded, that would be because division of a debt owed by two persons is precluded due to the fact that the liabilities usually differ, and are not equivalent.59 9.11
Another example of Aḥmad’s religious understanding and the subtlety of his reasoning is the time when he was asked about a man who had vowed to circle the Kaʿbah
