Yazīd ibn ʿĪsā al-Ṭāliqānī, father of Abū Bakr Aḥmad

Related to us: Aḥmad ibn al-Layth al-Balkhī in the mosque of ʿAbd al-Ṣamad; he said: related to me: Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Yazīd ibn ʿĪsā al-Ṭālaqānī; he said: I heard: my father saying: I heard: Saʿīd ibn Yazīd al-Baghdādī saying: I was with Abū Ḥanīfa when al-Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid al-Khurāsānī came and asked him a question. He answered it. He asked him for the evidence, and he explained it. Al-Ḥusayn said: “Abū Ḥanīfa, I was with Sufyān and asked him this question, but he did not answer me. I returned to him several times, and he did not answer me.” He said: “Perhaps he had no knowledge of it.” Saʿīd said: When the man left, I went out with him and accompanied him to Sufyān al-Thawrī. I asked him that question, and he said: “I have no knowledge of it.” I said: “I asked Abū Ḥanīfa about it.” He said: “What answer did he give?” I told him. He said: “Did you ask him for the evidence?” I said: “Yes.” He said: “What did he do?” I said: “He cited such-and-such as evidence.” He said: “Ḥusayn, he answered it excellently.” Al-Ḥusayn said: “You say just now that you have no knowledge of it, then say Abū Ḥanīfa answered excellently?” He said: “Ḥusayn, there are many like us in Abū Ḥanīfa’s trouser cord.”

The final metaphor of the trouser cord is retained rather than replaced with a general statement of admiration. First-person shifts remain as printed.