“The best of all matters are those in the middle.”

Often quoted as a hadith, and it is not one: the raised chains for it do not hold up, as the hadith critics note. What is authentic is its transmission as a saying of the early generations — Ibn Abi Shaybah records it with a sound chain from the Successors Mutarrif ibn ‘Abdullah and Abu Qilabah. The meaning is Qur’anic all the same: “thus We have made you a middle nation.”