He said: "A folk who came after us and learned science before us. If you raise grapes while they are still green and sour (husrum), nothing comes of them." Let a Levantine meet a Levantine and say to him: "You are upon the First Religion; I bear witness for you that you are upon the First Religion." So leave the innovations and follow the traditions (al-sunan), due to the words of God the Almighty: {But their faith was not to benefit them once they saw Our punishment. [It is] the Sunnah of God which has preceded among His servants. And the disbelievers then lost [everything]}1.
I encountered Abu al-Hasan Zayd al-Junbulani al-Darrab, who was among the Iraqi sheikhs. A debate occurred between us, part of which was that he asked me regarding the Hoopoe, saying: "What do you say regarding it?" I replied: "As my jurist and the grandfather of my father, Lord Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi—may God be pleased with him—said when he was asked about it; he said: 'The Gate of Gates and the Cause of causes, Salman.'"
Zayd said to me: "O you, the hoopoe is a metamorphosed being (maskh), yet you say he is the Gate?!" I said: "May God rectify you; what do you say regarding the two crows that fought before Cain, until one killed the other—were they truly two crows? If you say that God sent two crows who were metamorphosed beings due to the words of the Almighty: {Then God sent a crow searching in the ground to show him how to hide the disgrace of his brother. He said, "O woe to me! Have I failed to be like this crow and hide the disgrace of my brother?" And he became of the regretful}2, then the messenger must be of the same genus as the sender."
Zayd said: "I do not say this; rather, I say that the two crows were two angels, namely Gabriel and Michael." I said to him: "Likewise, since it was possible for them to be two angels, it is possible for the Hoopoe to be the Gate. His Gate was at that time a crow, and at this time a hoopoe; and he is also the Rooster of the Throne."