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From: "Isa Robert P. Martin" … ir_martin@y...> 
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Subject: Ibn al-Jawzi Article by G. F. Haddad 
 
IBN AL-JAWZI  
by Dr. G. F. Haddad 
`Abd al-Rahman ibn `Ali ibn Muhammad ibn `Ali ibn 
`Ubayd Allah ibn `Abd Allah ibn Hammadi ibn Ahmad ibn 
Muhammad ibn Ja`far ibn `Abd Allah ibn al-Qasim ibn 
al-Nadr ibn al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn `Abd Allah ibn 
al-Faqih `Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Faqih al-Qasim ibn 
Muhammad ibn Khalifat Rasul Allah -- Allah bless and 
greet him -- Abi Bakr al-Siddiq, Abu al-Faraj ibn 
al-Jawzi al-Qurashi al-Taymi al-Bakri al-Baghdadi 
al-Hanbali al-Ash`ari (509/510-597). He was, with 
Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani, the imam of Hanbalis 
and foremost orator of kings and princes in his time 
whose gatherings reportedly reached one hundred 
thousand, a hadith master, philologist, commentator of 
Qur'an, expert jurist, physician, and historian of 
superb character and exquisite manners.


Orphaned of his father at age three, Ibn al-Jawzi was 
raised by his aunt who later brought him to the hadith 
scholar Ibn Nasir, his first shaykh. He took hadith 
from him as well as over eighty shaykhs and was 
teacher to his grandson Shams al-Din Yusuf ibn 
Qazghali al-Hanafi - Sibt al-Jawzi - as well as some 
of the greatest Hanbali hadith masters and jurists 
such as Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama, Ibn al-Najjar, and 
Diya' al-Din al-Maqdisi.

Ibn al-Jawzi took a staunch Ash`ari stance in doctrine 
and courageously denounced the anthropomorphism of his 
school in the interpretation of the divine Attributes 
in his landmark work Daf` Shubah al-Tashbih bi Akuff 
al-Tanzih ("Rebuttal of the Insinuations of 
Anthropomorphism at the Hands of Divine 
Transcendence"), also known as al-Baz al-Ashhab 
al-Munqadd `ala Mukhalifi al-Madhhab ("The Flaming 
Falcon Swooping Down on the Dissenters of the 
[Hanbali] School") which he began with the words: 

I have seen among the followers of our school some who 
held unsound discourses on doctrine. Three in 
particular have applied themselves to write books in 
which they distort the Hanbali madhhab: Abu `Abd Allah 
ibn Hamid,1 his friend al-Qadi (Abu Ya`la),2 and Ibn 
al-Zaghuni.3 I have seen them (Ibn Abi Ya`la, Ibn 
Hamid, and Ibn al-Zaghuni) descend to the level of 
popular belief, construing the divine attributes 
according to the requirements of what the human senses 
know. They have heard that Allah created Adam 
according to His/his likeness and form (`ala 
suratihi), so they affirm that Allah has a form and 
face in addition to His essence, as well as two eyes, 
a mouth, an uvula, molar teeth, a physiognomy, two 
hands, fingers, a palm, a little finger, a thumb, a 
chest, thighs, two legs, two feet!... Then they 
placate the common people by adding: `But not as we 
think.'... They have applied outward meanings with 
regard to the Divine Names and Attributes. Thus, they 
give the Divine Attributes a wholly innovative and 
contrived name for which they have no evidence either 
in the transmitted texts of Qur'an and Sunna or in 
rational proofs based on reason. They have paid 
attention neither to texts that steer one away from 
the apparent sense towards the meanings required for 
Allah, nor to the necessary cancellation of the 
external meaning when it attributes to Allah the 
distinguishing marks of creatures. They are not 
content to say: "attribute of act" (sifatu fi`l) until 
they end up saying: "attribute of essence" (sifatu 
dhat). Then, once they affirmed them to be "attributes 
of essence," they claimed: we do not construe the text 
according to the directives of the Arabic language. 
Thus they refuse to construe "hand" (yad) as meaning 
"favor" and "power"; or "coming forth" (maji') and 
"coming" (ityan) as "mercy" and "favor"; or "shin" 
(saq) as "tribulation." Instead they say: We construe 
them in their customary external senses, and the 
external sense is what is describable in terms of 
well-known human characteristics, and a text is only 
construed literally if the literal sense is feasible. 
Then they become offended when imputed with likening 
Allah to His creation (tashbih) and express scorn at 
such an attribution to themselves, clamoring: "We are 
Ahl al-Sunna!" Yet their discourse is clearly couched 
in terms of tashbih. And some of the masses follow 
them. 
 
I have advised both the followers and the leaders 
saying: Colleagues! You are adherents and followers of 
our madhhab. Your greatest Imam is Ahmad ibn Hanbal, 
may Allah have mercy on him, who said while under the 
lash of the Inquisition: "How can I say what was never 
said?" Beware of innovating in his madhhab what is not 
from him! Then, you said regarding the hadiths (of the 
Attributes): "They must be taken in their external 
sense." Yet the external sense of qadam ("foot") is a 
bodily limb!4 And when it was said concerning `Isa: 
ruh Allah ("Allah's spirit") the Christians thought 
that Allah possessed an attribute named His spirit 
which had entered Mary! 
 
Whoever says: "He is established on His throne in His 
Essence (bi al-dhat)," has made Allah an object of 
sensory perception. It behooves one not to neglect the 
means by which the principle of Religion is 
established and that is reason. For it is by virtue of 
reason that we have known Allah and judged Him to be 
Eternal without beginning. If you were to say: "We 
read hadiths but we are silent," no one would have any 
objection against you. However, your interpretation of 
the outward sense is morally repugnant and disgusting. 
Do not introduce into the madhhab of this man of the 
Salaf, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, what his thought does not 
contain.5 
 
Because of this work, Ibn al-Jawzi was criticized by 
the Hanbali and Hanbali-leaning proponents of the 
views he lambasted, such as Muwaffaq al-Din ibn Qudama 
and his grandson the hadith master Sayf al-Din ibn 
al-Majd6 as well as Ibn Taymiyya and his circle. Among 
them al-Dhahabi said: "May Allah have mercy on him and 
forgive him! Would that he had not probed figurative 
interpretation nor diverged from his Imam." 
Al-Dhahabi's words are, of course, loaded assumptions 
that Ibn al-Jawzi had himself long since rejected as 
shown by the above lines from the Daf`. 
 
Some went too far in criticizing him, such as Ibn 
Nuqta who said: "I never saw anyone relied upon in his 
Religion, knowledge, and reason, that approved of Ibn 
al-Jawzi." Al-Dhahabi responded: "If Allah approves of 
him, they are irrelevant." 
 
Ibn al-Jawzi was a prolific author of over seven 
hundred books, among which al-Dhahabi lists the 
following:  
 
al-Adhkiya';  
Afat al-Muhaddithin;  
Akhbar al-Akhyar;  
Akhbar al-Nisa', an informative handbook for Muslim 
women in 110 brief chapters followed by biographical 
notices on sixty-six eminent Muslim women. The book 
was printed under the title Ahkam al-Nisa'. In it Ibn 
al-Jawzi cites the following:  
The Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- is related 
to say: "I hate for a woman to be brazen (salqa') and 
bare-eyed (marha'), neither wearing kohl on her eyes 
nor henna on her hands."7  
`A'isha - Allah be well-pleased with her - is reported 
to say: "Allah's Messenger -- Allah bless and greet 
him -- ordered us [women] to comb through our hair in 
ghusl and completely dye our hands with henna lest 
they become dry and rough like men's hands."8  
al-Amthal, a work on proverbs;  
al-Bulgha fi al-Fiqh;  
Dhamm al-Hasad;  
Dhamm al-Hawa;  
Dhamm al-Muskir;  
Dhikr al-Huffaz;  
Dhikr al-Qussas;  
al-Du`afa', a compendium of weak narrators of hadith;  
Dur' al-Dim fi Siyam Yawm al-Ghaym;  
Durra al-Iklil in history;  
Fada'il al-`Arab;  
Fadl Maqbarat Ahmad, on the benefits associated with 
Ahmad ibn Hanbal's cemetery in Baghdad;  
al-Fara'id;  
al-Fawa'id al-Muntaqat in fifty-six parts;  
Funun al-Afnan fi `Ulum al-Qur'an'  
al-Hada'iq in two volumes;  
Hal al-Hallaj, "The Status of al-Hallaj," in which Ibn 
al-Jawzi reports that he had in his possession the 
autograph copy of a treatise of the Hanbali hadith 
master Ibn `Aqil (d. 513) written in praise of 
al-Hallaj, entitled Juz' fi Nasr Karamat al-Hallaj 
("Opuscule in Praise of al-Hallaj's Miraculous 
Gifts"). Like other Hanbali Sufis such as al-Harawi 
al-Ansari (d. 481), Ibn Qudama (d. 620) and al-Tufi 
(d. 715), Ibn `Aqil considered al-Hallaj a wali and 
did not doubt his sincerity and righteousness.  
al-Hathth `ala al-`Ilm;  
al-Hathth `ala Talab al-Walad;  
al-`Ilal al-Mutanahiya fi al-Ahadith al-Wahiya in two 
volumes, a companion work to his Mawdu`at;  
al-Intisar fi al-Khilafiyyat in two volumes;  
al-Ishara fi al-Qira'at al-Mukhtara;  
al-Jadal;  
Jami` al-Masanid in seven volumes, which al-Dhahabi 
said is not even near the claim laid by its title;  
al-Khata' wa al-Sawab Min Ahadith al-Shihab;  
al-Khawatim;  
Manafi` al-Tibb;  
Manaqib, a series of books on the immense merits of 
the following: Abu Bakr, `Umar, `Ali, Ibrahim ibn 
Adham, al-Fudayl ibn `Iyad, Bishr al-Hafi, Rabi`a 
al-`Adawiyya, `Umar ibn `Abd al-`Aziz, Sa`id ibn 
al-Musayyib, al-Hasan al-Basri, Sufyan al-Thawri, 
Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Shafi`i, Ma`ruf al-Karkhi, and 
others.  
al-Manasik;  
al-Manfa`a fi al-Madhahib al-Arba`a in two volumes;  
Mashhur al-Masa'il in two volumes;  
al-Mawdu`at in two volumes, a collection of what he 
considered hadith forgeries in which he included many 
authentic hadiths, as pointed out by those who 
criticized it;  
Minhaj al-Qasidin wa Mufid al-Sadiqin ("The Road of 
the Pursuers and the Instructor of the Truthful"), an 
abridgment of al-Ghazzali's Ihya' `Ulum al-Din - which 
Ibn al-Jawzi criticized - in which he carefully avoids 
the use of the terms sufi and tasawwuf. The Minhaj was 
epitomized in one volume by Najm al-Din Abu al-`Abbas 
Ahmad ibn Qudama (d. 742). Here are some of its 
chapter-titles and excerpts most illustrative of Imam 
al-Ghazzali's influence on Ibn al-Jawzi and of the 
latter's general adoption of Sufi themes and 
terminology:  
Fasl `ilm ahwal al-qalb (Section on the science of the 
states of the heart)  
Fasl fi daqa'iq al-adab al-batina fi al-zakat (Section 
on the ethics of the hidden minutiae of zakat)  
Fasl fi al-adab al-batina wa al-ishara ila adab 
al-hajj (Section on the ethics of the secrets of the 
Pilgrimage)  
Kitab riyadat al-nafs wa tahdhib al-khuluq wa 
mu`alajat amrad al-qalb (Book of the training of the 
ego, the upbringing of the character, and the treating 
of the diseases of the heart)  
Fasl fi fa'idat shahawat al-nafs (Section on the 
benefit of the appetites of the ego)  
Bayan al-riya' al-khafi al-ladhi huwa akhfa min dabib 
al-naml (Exposition of the hidden self-display which 
is more concealed than the treading of the ant)  
Fasl fi bayan ma yuhbitu al-`amal min al-riya' wa ma 
la yuhbit (Section exposing the self-display which 
nullifies one's deeds and the self-display which does 
not)  
Fasl fi dawa' al-riya' wa tariqatu mu`alajat al-qalbi 
fih (Section on the remedy of self-display and the way 
to treat the heart from its ill)  
Kitab al-mahabba wa al-shawqi wa al-unsi wa al-rida 
(Book of love, passionate longing, familiarity, and 
good pleasure)  
Fasl fi bayan mi`na al-shawq ila allahi ta`ala 
(Section exposing the meaning of passionate longing 
for Allah)  
Bab fi al-muhasaba wa al-muraqaba (Chapter on taking 
account of oneself and vigilance) al-maqam al-awwal: 
al-musharata (The first station: commitment) al-maqam 
al-thani: al-muraqaba (The second station: vigilance) 
al-maqam al-thalith: al-muhasaba ba`da al-`amal (The 
third station: self-accounting after a deed) al-maqam 
al-rabi`: mu`aqabat al-nafs `ala taqsiriha (The fourth 
station: berating the ego for its shortcomings) 
al-maqam al-khamis: al-mujahada (The fifth station: 
struggling) al-maqam al-sadis: fi mu`atabat al-nafs wa 
tawbikhiha (The sixth station: castigating and chiding 
the ego) - Abu Bakr al-Siddiq said: "Whoever hates his 
ego for Allah's sake, Allah will protect Him against 
what He hates." - Anas said: I heard `Umar say as he 
was alone behind a wall: "Bakh, bakh! Bravo, well 
done, O my ego! By Allah, you had better fear Allah, O 
little son of Khattab, or he will punish you!" - 
Al-Bakhtari ibn Haritha said: "I saw one of the 
devoted worshippers sitting in front of a fire which 
he had kindled as he was castigating his ego, and he 
did not stop castigating his ego until he died." - One 
of them said: "When the saints are mentioned, I say to 
myself: Fie on you and fie on you again." - Know that 
your worst enemy is the ego that lies between your two 
flanks. It has been created a tyrant commanding evil, 
always pushing you towards it, and you have been 
ordered to straighten it, cleanse it (tazkiyat), wean 
it from what it feeds on, and drag it in chains, 
subdued, to the worship of its Lord.9  
[Continuation of his bibliography:]  
al-Mudhish;  
al-Muhadhdhab fi al-Madhhab;  
al-Mughaffalin;  
al-Mughni, a massive Qur'anic commentary which he 
abridged into Zad al-Masir;  
al-Mukhtar fi al-Ash`ar, a ten-volume anthology of 
poetry;  
Mukhtasar Funun Ibn `Aqil in over ten to twenty 
volumes;  
al-Muntakhab;  
Muntaqad al-Mu`taqad;  
al-Muntazam fi al-Tarikh, a ten-volume history of 
Islam in which he narrates with his chain from 
al-`Abbas ibn Hamza and Musa ibn `Isa respectively:  
I prayed zuhr behind Abu Yazid al-Bistami. When he 
first wanted to raise his hands to say Allahu akbar he 
was unable due to his great awe of Allah's name. His 
joints began to shake until I could hear the rattling 
of his bones, which shocked me.... He used to rebuke 
himself and say to his soul every morning: "O lair of 
every evil! A woman has menses then becomes pure again 
after three to ten days, but you, O my soul! have been 
sitting for twenty and thirty years and not become 
pure yet. When will you clean yourself?"10  
Mushkil al-Sihah in four volumes;  
Muthir al-Gharam al-Sakin ila Ashraf al-Amakin;  
al-Nab`a fi al-Qira'at al-Sab`a;  
Naqy al-Naql in two volumes;  
al-Nasikh wa al-Mansukh;  
Nasim al-Suhur;  
Qiyam al-Layl in three parts;  
al-Qussas;  
al-Riyada;  
Sayd al-Khatir in three volumes containing aphorisms 
and wise counsels;  
Siba Najd;  
Sifa al-Safwa in four volumes, an abridgment of Abu 
Nu`aym's compendium of Sufis titled Hilya al-Awliya, 
in which he cited al-Junayd as saying: "Of the marks 
of Allah's wrath against a servant is that He makes 
him very busy with what is of no concern to him";  
al-Tabsira in three volumes, on oratory;  
Tadhkira al-Arib on the Arabic language;  
Tadhkira al-Muntabih fi `uyun al-Mushtabih;  
al-Tahqiq fi Masa'il al-Khilaf in two volumes;  
Tahrim al-Dubur;  
Tahrim al-Mut`a;  
Talbis Iblis, a work written against the Shi`a and the 
wayward Sufis;  
Talqih al-Fuhum;  
al-Taysir fi al-Tafsir;  
al-Thabat `ind al-Mamat;  
al-`Udda fi Usul al-Fiqh;  
Usud al-Ghaba fi Ma`rifa al-Sahaba;  
`Uyun al-Hikayat in two volumes;  
al-`Uzla;  
al-Wafa bi Fada'il al-Mustafa, a large work on 
Prophetic biography and immense merits in several 
hundred chapters;  
al-Wahiyat, another title for al-`Ilal al-Mutanahiya;  
Wird al-Aghsan fi Ma`ani al-Qur'an;  
al-Wujuh wa al-Naza'ir;  
al-Yawaqit, a collection of sermons.  
It was reproached to Ibn al-Jawzi that he wrote too 
much too fast without careful verification. Al-Dhahabi 
said: "We call Ibn al-Jawzi hafiz (hadith memorizer) 
in deference to the profusion of his writings, not to 
his scholarliness," while Shaykh `Abd al-Fattah Abu 
Ghudda said: 
 
Our reliance is on Allah! Ibn al-Jawzi composed a 
great big book on hadith forgeries so that jurists, 
preachers, and others may avoid them, then you will 
see him cite in his exhortative works forged hadiths 
and rejected stories without head nor tail, without 
shame or second thought. In the end one feels that Ibn 
al-Jawzi is two people and not one!... For this reason 
Ibn al-Athir blamed him in his history entitled 
al-Kamil with the words: "Ibn al-Jawzi blamed him 
[al-Ghazzali] for many things, among them his 
narration of unsound hadiths in his exhortations. O 
wonder that Ibn al-Jawzi should criticize him for 
that! For his own books and exhortative works are 
crammed full with them (mahshuwwun bihi wa mamlu'un 
minh)!"11 And the hadith master al-Sakhawi said in 
Sharh al-Alfiyya: "Ibn al-Jawzi cited forgeries and 
their likes in high abundance in his exhortative 
works."12 
 
Abu al-Muzaffar Sibt al-Jawzi said: 
 
I heard my grandfather say from the pulpit: "With 
these two fingers of mine I wrote two thousand 
volumes; one hundred thousand [wayward Muslims] 
repented at my hands; and twenty thousand 
[non-Muslims] entered Islam." He used to recite the 
entire Qur'an once a week and would not come out of 
his house except for jum`a or to the gathering.13 ... 
He had renounced the world and shared little in it... 
He never joked with anyone, nor jested with little 
boys, nor ate anything that came from parts the 
licitness of which he was unsure of.  
 
His Utterances 
Al-Dhahabi cited some of Ibn al-Jawzi's pithy remarks: 
 
- To a friend of his: "You are widely excused for your 
absence because I trust you so much, and you stand 
condemned all the same because I missed you so much." 
 
- From the pulpit: "O prince! Remember Allah's justice 
concerning you when you exercise power, and His power 
over you when you mete out punishment. Do not heal 
your anger by infecting your religion." 
 
- From the pulpit: "O commander of the believers! If I 
speak out, I shall fear you; and if I remain silent, I 
shall fear for you. I have decided to put my fear for 
you ahead of my fear of you. For the saying of one who 
counsels: 'Itaqillah!' is better yet than that of one 
who says: 'You belong to a house that has been 
forgiven.' [= Ahl al-Bayt]" 
 
- To a man who was asking him what he should hold 
preferable, laud or asking forgiveness, he replied: "A 
dirty cloth needs soap more than incense." 
 
- To a man who told him: "I did not sleep last night 
in anticipation of this gathering!" he replied: "This 
is because you were looking forward to the show; but 
it is tonight that you should not sleep." 
 
- To a man who kept asking him who was better, Abu 
Bakr or `Ali, he replied: "Sit down. You are better 
than everyone else." 
 
- A man used to sit in Ibn al-Jawzi's gatherings and 
frequently manifest his pleasure out loud at the 
Imam's expressions. One day he remained silent a long 
time, whereupon Ibn al-Jawzi turned to him and said: 
"The Harun of your exclamations are an aid to the Musa 
of my expressions. Therefore send it forth to me as my 
prop." This is a commonly-observed device of Arabic 
teachers who require a form of persistent ovation, 
beyond attentiveness or intent gaze, in order to 
perceive appreciation from their listeners and pour 
out their best to them. 
 
- "The people of [Mu`tazili] kalam say that there is 
no Lord in the heaven, nor Qur'an in the mushaf, nor 
Prophet in the grave. These are three disgraces to be 
attributed to them." 
 
Ibn al-Jawzi was severely tried towards the end of his 
life when his criticism of Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir 
al-Gilani - his senior of forty years - led to 
accusations made against him to the Sultan al-Nasir by 
the Shaykh's children and supporters. Thereupon Ibn 
al-Jawzi was publicly reviled, seized, and dragged 
away to jail while his house was sealed and his 
dependents dispersed. He was taken from Baghdad to the 
city of Wasit where he remained imprisoned for five 
years during which he never once entered a hammam, 
patching up his own clothes and preparing his own 
food. Ibn al-Jawzi was released after his son Yusuf 
succeeded in securing the intercession of the Caliph's 
mother in his favor. At that time the Imam was about 
eighty years old. 
 
It was related that Ibn al-Jawzi was handsome, 
mild-mannered, with a melodious voice, of sweet 
company. He used to take care of his health and always 
try and improve his constitution and whatever 
stimulated his mind and sharpened it. He wore 
perfumed, fine white clothes. He had a sharp wit and 
was swift in his reply. As a result of drinking 
anacardium marsh nuts (baladhir) early in life, his 
beard fell and remained very sparse, and he used to 
dye it black until he died. Al-Muwaffaq `Abd al-Latif 
said: "His books had many mistakes in them because he 
would finish a book and no longer look at it." 
Al-Dhahabi commented on this: "His books are filled 
with all kinds of mistakes due to lack of revision and 
copying from written sources. He compiled such an 
amount that a second life would not have sufficed to 
revise it all." The week of his death he recited the 
following line: 
 
kam kana li min majlisin law shubbihat halatuhu 
latashabbahat bi al-jannati 
 
"How many a gathering of mine, if its condition were 
to be compared to something, it would have been 
comparable to Paradise!" 
 
His grandson related from his mother that on his 
death-bed Ibn al-Jawzi was heard repeating, addressing 
invisible visitors: "What do you want me to do with 
these peacocks?" He died between maghrib and `isha on 
the night before jum`a the 13th of Ramadan. He was 
washed before fajr and the people of Baghdad followed 
his bier to the cemetary of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. The 
crowd was such that by the time his grave was reached 
it was time for Jum`a. During the remainder of the 
month, people recited khatmas of the Qur'an at his 
grave uninterruptedly, day and night. The night after 
Ibn al-Jawzi's burial the hadith scholar Ahmad ibn 
Salman al-Sukr saw him in his sleep standing on a 
pulpit of pearl, preaching to the angels. 
 
Main source: al-Dhahabi, Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' 
15:483-494 #5342. 
 
NOTES 
 
1Abu `Abd Allah al-Hasan ibn Hamid al-Baghdadi 
al-Warraq al-Hanbali (d. 403), Abu Ya`la's teacher. 
 
2The father of the author of Tabaqat al-Hanabila, 
al-Qadi Abu Ya`la Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn al-Farra' 
al-Hanbali (d. 458). 
 
3Abu al-Hasan `Ali ibn `Ubayd Allah al-Zaghuni 
al-Hanbali (d. 527), author of al-Idah and one of Ibn 
al-Jawzi's teachers. 
 
4A reference to the hadith whereby Allah places his 
"qadam" in the Fire. See on this the section entitled 
"The Salaf's Interpretation of qadam, rijl, and saq" 
in Shaykh Hisham Kabbani's Islamic Beliefs and 
Doctrine According to Ahl al-Sunna Volume One (p. 195) 
or his Encyclopedia of Islamic Doctrine (1:168). See 
also the relevant pages at 
- expired link (before 2023-02-03) sunnah.org/aqida
 

5Ibn al-Jawzi, Daf` Shubah al-Tashbih, introduction. 
 
6On him see al-Dhahabi's Tadhkira al-Huffaz (4:1446). 
 
7Narrated from `A'isha by Ibn al-Jawzi without chain 
in Ahkam al-Nisa' (p. 89). 
 
8Ibid. Al-Haythami said in Majma` al-Zawa'id (5:171): 
"Al-Tabarani narrated it from Umm Layla in al-Awsat 
and al-Kabir (25:138) and its chain contains narrators 
I do not know." Also narrated from Umm Layla by Ibn 
Mandah - as stated by Ibn Hajar in al-Isaba (8:296) - 
and Ibn al-Mulaqqin in Khulasa al-Badr al-Munir 
(1:358). 
 
9Ibn Qudama, Mukhtasar minhaj al-qasidin li Ibn 
al-Jawzi, ed. M. Ahmad Hamdan and `Abd al-Qadir 
Arna'ut, 2nd. ed. (Damascus: maktab al-shabab 
al-muslim wa al-maktab al-islami, 1380/1961) p. 426. 
 
10In Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam (5:28-29). 
 
11Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh (10:228). 
 
12 `Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda, notes to al-Lucknawi's 
al-Raf` wa al-Takmil (p. 420-421). 
 
13At this point al-Dhahabi asks: "What about 
congregational prayer?" Yet it seems needless to say 
that Sibt al-Jawzi's statement takes it for granted as 
the school of Imam Ahmad considers obligatory prayer 
invalid unless offered in congregation if one has the 
ability.  
 
 
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