And I have already issued an order to bring the enemy of...

And I have already issued an order to bring the enemy of Allah[^77] from Medina on a bare hump, and I have ordered him to be humiliated and insulted to the extremes, and I shall most certainly afflict many times as much pain as he had inflicted upon you.' I said to him, `May Allah grant good health to the commander of the faithful and be generous to him!

I have forgiven him due to his kinship to the Messenger of Allah and to you.' Abu Ja`far said, `And may He forgive you, too, and reward you.'" Malik went on to say, "Then he discussed with me what happened to the predecessors and the scholars, and I found him to be the most knowledgeable person of them. Then he discussed knowledge and jurisprudence with me, and I found him the most knowledgeable of all people about what they agreed upon and the most informed of their disagreements.

He had learned by heart many narrations and was fully comprehending all what he had heard. Then he said to me, `O father of Abdullah!

Organize your knowledge and write it down, and arrange what you write in book form, and avoid the extremism of Abdullah ibn Umar and the tolerance of Abdullah ibn Abbas and the oddities of Abdullah ibn Mas`ud, then seek common grounds, and record whatever the Imams and the sahaba, may Allah be pleased with them, had all agreed upon, so that we may oblige people, Insha-Allah, to follow your knowledge, and we will disseminate your books in all lands and make sure that nobody disagrees with their contents nor judge except according to them.' I said to him, `May Allah keep the ameer (ruler) on the path of righteousness, but the people of Iraq disagree with our knowledge, and they do not feel obligated to do what we do.' Abu Ja`far al-Mansour said, `The people of Iraq will be made to do it, and we will strike their heads with the sword and split their spines with our whips; so, hurry to do it, for Muhammad al-Mahdi, my son, will meet you next year, Insha-Allah, and I hope he will find out that you have finished this task, Insha-Allah.'" Malik said after that, "While we were thus sitting, a small child came out from the back side of the dome underneath which we were, and when he saw him, he was frightened and went back.

Abu Ja`far said to him, `Come, my loved one! This is the father of Abdullah, the faqih of the people of Hijaz!' Then he turned to me and said, `O Abu Abdullah!