This follows the report where Ibn ʿUmar says, “While God’s Emissary, God bless and keep him, was alive, and his Companions were numerous, we used to list them by saying Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān, and then stopping.” 20.28
After the Council members come the Emigrants who fought at Badr, then the Helpers who fought there, in order of their emigration or acceptance of Islam. After these come the Companions—that is, of the generation the Emissary was sent to. Anyone who was in his company for a year, or a month, or a day, or an hour, or saw him, counts as a Companion, to be honored according to the length of time he spent with him and how soon he started, or how often he heard him speak, or looked at him. The least distinguished member of that generation is more distinguished than any member of the generation that never saw him. When they meet God, those who joined the Prophet, saw him, and heard him speak will have greater merit by virtue of their being his Companions than any member of the next generation, even if the latter should have done all manner of good deeds. Anyone who disparages a Companion, or dislikes him for something he may have done, or lists his faults, remains a supporter of dangerous novelties138 until he blesses them all, without any ill feeling. 20.29
HIS POSITION ON GIVING ʿUTHMĀN PRECEDENCE OVER ʿALĪ
[Ṣāliḥ:] Someone asked my father—with me present—whether someone who says that ʿAlī was better than ʿUthmān is doing something new and bad. 20.30
“Anyone who does that deserves to be denounced,” said my father. “The Companions of the Emissary put ʿUthmān—God be pleased with him—first.”
[ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān al-Ḥimṣī:] When Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was transported from Samarra to the Byzantine frontier, they stopped here in Homs. I found him and asked him his position on ʿAlī and ʿUthmān. 20.31
“First ʿUthmān, then ʿAlī,” he said. “Listen, Abū Ḥafṣ,” he continued. “Anyone who puts ʿAlī before ʿUthmān is scoffing at the Council.”139
[Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf:] I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal about putting some Companions before others. He said, “Anyone who puts ʿAlī ahead of Abū Bakr is questioning the judgment of God’s Emissary. Anyone who puts ʿAlī ahead of ʿUmar has questioned the judgment of God’s Emissary and Abū Bakr both. Anyone who puts ʿAlī ahead of ʿUthmān has questioned the judgment of God’s Emissary, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and the Emigrants, and I can’t imagine that someone who does that will benefit from any good works he does.” 20.32
HIS POSITION ON ʿALĪ, ON WHOM ETERNAL PEACE, AND THE MEMBERS OF THE PROPHET’S HOUSEHOLD140
[ʿAbd Allāh:] One day I was sitting with my father when some people from al-Karkh came in. They spoke for a good long while about the caliphates of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān. Then they turned to the caliphate of ʿAlī and went on and on about it. After a while my father looked up at them and said, “You’ve said a lot about ʿAlī and the caliphate, but it wasn’t holding the office that made ʿAlī great. It was having ʿAlī as caliph that made the office great.” 20.33
Al-Sayyārī added, “I told this story to a Shiʿi, and he said, ‘You’ve just taken away half the resentment I had against Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.’”
[ʿAbd Allāh:] After hearing my father recite the Hadith of Safīnah,141 I asked him, “Dad, what do you say about putting some Companions before others?” 20.34
“As far as the succession goes, it’s Abū Bakr, then ʿUmar, then ʿUthmān.”
“What about ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib?”
“Son, ʿAlī was a member of the Prophet’s household. No one compares with them.”
[Aḥmad:] None of the Companions has as many well-attested virtues as ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. 20.35
[Aḥmad:] Anyone who denies that ʿAlī was an exemplar is even worse at finding his way than the family donkey. 20.36
[Ḥanbal:] I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal whether ʿAlī’s caliphate was valid. 20.37
“God help us!” he cried. “ʿAlī upheld the law and cut off the hands of thieves; he collected the alms-tax and distributed it without taking his own share. How for God’s sake could anyone object to his being caliph? He was a good one, too: the Companions of God’s Emissary, God bless and keep him, supported him, prayed behind him, joined his expeditions, fought for him, went on pilgrimage with him, and called him Commander of Believers, willingly and without reservation. Who are we to do otherwise?”
HIS POSITION ON THE DISPUTES THAT BROKE OUT AMONG THE COMPANIONS
[Abū Bakr al-Marrūdhī:] When we were in Samarra, one of the caliph’s messengers asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal what he thought about the dispute between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiyah. 20.38
“I have nothing but good to say about them.”
I also heard Ibn Ḥanbal say, after someone mentioned the Companions of God’s Emissary: “God have mercy on them all! Muʿāwiyah, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, Abū Mūsā l-Ashʿarī, and al-Mughīrah are all described in the Book of God, where it says, «Their marks are on their faces, the traces of their prostrations.»”142
[Ibrāhīm ibn Āzir:] I was once at Ibn Ḥanbal’s when a man asked him about what had happened between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiyah. Ibn Ḥanbal ignored him. Then, when he was told that the man was from the house of Hāshim, he turned to him and recited: “«Those were a people that have passed away; theirs is what they did and yours what you have done. You shall not be answerable for their deeds.»”143 20.39
HIS POSITION ON THE REJECTIONISTS144
[ʿAbd Allāh:] I asked my father what a Rejectionist is. 20.40
“Anyone who curses and reviles Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.”
I also asked him about cursing any of the Companions of the Emissary of God.
“I wouldn’t call him a Muslim.” 145
HIS INSISTENCE ON MAINTAINING THE PRACTICES OF THE EARLY MUSLIMS
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, God be pleased with him, strove to emulate the practices of the early Muslims to the point that—as we learned from al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Munādī—he asked his wife’s permission to have a concubine in emulation of them. With his wife’s consent, he bought a woman for a trifling price and named her Rayḥānah, following the example set by the Prophet, God bless and keep him. 21.1
[Al-Baghdādī:] Someone once greeted Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal by saying, “May you live long in Islam!” 21.2
“And in the sunnah,” he replied.
[Al-Maymūnī:] Never have I laid eyes on anyone with more merit than Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, nor any latter-day Muslim146 more wary of transgressing God’s law, or more devoted to the
