Abū Isḥāq al-Ṭālaqānī

Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Tirmidhī related to us. He said: Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Balkhī related to us. He said: Abū Isḥāq al-Ṭālaqānī related to us. He said: al-Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid said: A legal question arose for me in Marw, and I found no one who knew it. I went to Sufyān al-Thawrī and asked him [about it]. He lowered his head for a while, then said: ‘Ḥusayn, I do not know it.’ I said: ‘You say you do not know it, although you are an imam?’ He said: ‘I say what Ibn ʿUmar said when asked about something: “I do not know.”’ I went to Abū Ḥanīfa and asked him. He gave me an opinion. I asked him for the evidence, and he supplied it. I went to Sufyān and said: ‘I asked Abū Ḥanīfa; he gave me an opinion, and when I asked for the evidence he supplied it.’ He said: ‘What did he say?’ I said: ‘He said such-and-such.’ Sufyān considered it for a while, then said: ‘Ḥusayn, it is as Abū Ḥanīfa said.’ I said: ‘Yesterday you said you did not know it, and today you say it is as Abū Ḥanīfa said?!’ He was silent for a while, then said: ‘Ḥusayn! There are many like us in Abū Ḥanīfa’s drawstring.’

The final figurative reference to his drawstring is retained rather than replaced with an unstated comparison.

Sahl ibn Bishr related to us: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Hāshim related to us: Abū Isḥāq al-Ṭālaqānī related to us: ʿUmar ibn Hārūn related to us, from Abū Ḥamza al-Thumālī, who said: We were with Abū Jaʿfar—that is, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī—when Abū Ḥanīfa—may God have mercy on him—entered. He knelt before him and asked him one question, then another, then another, and left. Abū Jaʿfar said, ‘How fine his bearing is, and how extensive his knowledge of jurisprudence!’