Abū Hāniʾ, qāḍī of Iṣbahān (Kufan by origin)

Related to us: Qabīṣa ibn al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṭabarī; he said: related to us: Ayyūb al-Aṣbahānī; he said: related to us: Ibrāhīm ibn Ayyūb; he said: related to us: Abū Hāniʾ; he said: related to us: Abū Ḥanīfa, from ʿAlqama ibn Marthad, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sābiṭ, who said: A judge of the Children of Israel died when their scholars were few. They approached one of their men and asked him to take charge of judging them, but he refused. He was visited in a dream and asked: “What prevents you from taking up the judgeship?” He said: “Fear of injustice.” He was told: “We shall place a sign between you and injustice.” He asked: “What is that sign?” He said: “So-and-so”—a man among them—“when you stand beside him and he is taller than you, you will know that you have acted unjustly.” He took his seat as judge. He would send for that man and, whenever he decided a case, stand beside him for each judgment. One day he decided a case and stood beside the man, and the man was taller than him. He left the judgeship, sad and distressed. He was visited in a dream and asked: “Why did you leave the judgeship?” He said: “I sent for the sign you placed between me and yourselves and stood beside him; he was taller than me.” He told me: “That was not because of an injustice you committed. Rather, the two litigants came before you, and you wished the right to belong to one of them so that judgment would be given for him.” He said: “No! I find myself acting unjustly inwardly even before I speak. I shall never sit to judge them again.”

The printed shift to “he told me” is retained; speakers are not silently reassigned.