that Ḥudhayfah (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu) was asked about this verse: "They have taken their scholars and monks as lords besides Allāh" (Sūrah al-Tawbah, 9:31); were they praying to them? He said: No, but they would permit for them what Allāh had forbidden, so they considered it permissible, and they would forbid them what Allāh had permitted, so they considered it forbidden, and thus they became "lords." It was recorded by ʿAbd al-Razzāq in "al-Tafsīr" (1/272), and by al-Ṭabarī and al-Bayhaqī in "al-Sunan"—and the context is his—and in "al-Shuʿab" (7/45), and by Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr in "Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm" (2/109) through various chains from him. This is a sound mursal isnād; they mentioned that (Abū al-Bakhtarī)—whose name is Saʿīd ibn Fīrūz—narrated from Ḥudhayfah: mursal. Moreover, the ḥāfiẓ mentioned that Ibn Mardawayh recorded it through another route from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār from ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim; thus, with its combined chains, it is ḥasan, if Allāh wills, and Ibn Kathīr indicated its strengthening in "Tafsīr" (2/348), but he also attributed it to Aḥmad, and perhaps he means in a work other than "al-Musnad"; for I did not find it there, nor did anyone else attribute it to him. Al-Suyūṭī also attributed it to Ibn Saʿd, ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and Abū al-Shaykh. The ḥāfiẓ attributed it to Ibn Abī Shaybah, Abū Yaʿlá, and al-Bayhaqī in "al-Madkhal" from this route—meaning: the one with al-Tirmidhī. The scholar al-Ālūsī said in "Rūḥ al-Maʿānī" following the ḥadīth and the narration of Ḥudhayfah: "And similar to that is their saying: So-and-so worships so-and-so; if he is excessive in obedience, it is a metaphor by likening obedience to worship, or a metonymy by applying worship, which is a specific obedience, to its general form, and the first is more emphatic. It is said: their taking them as lords is by prostrating to them, and the like, which is not appropriate..