4. He said: Abul Mudhaffar Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Balkhi reported to me from Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abul-Thalj, who reported from Abu Abdillah Ja’far ibn Muhammad al-Hasani, who reported from Isa ibn Mahran, who reported from Hafs ibn Umar al-Farra, who reported from Abu Muaz al-Khazzaz, who reported from Yunus ibn Abd al-Warith, from his father who said: Once Ibn Abbas was addressing us from the pulpit at Basrah. When he turned his face towards the people and said: "O group of people, bewildered in their religious affairs! If you had given precedence to he who Allah had given precedence, and put back he who Allah had put back, and if you had kept the heritage and the authority where Allah had kept them, no part of divine determinate share would have been unfairly distributed, and no friend of Allah would have been humiliated, and no two persons would have differed on the law of Allah. So taste the evil consequence of your negligence about what you sent forth, and those who do wrong shall come to know what punishment awaits them."