Muhammad ibn al-Muthannā reported to us; Muʿādh ibn Hishām narrated to us; my father narrated to me, from Qatādah, from ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Hārith, that Abū Ḥalīmah Muʿādh used to invoke blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ during the qunūt (1).
260—Shaykh al-Islam ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Harawī*
The imām, the exemplar, the eminent ḥāfiẓ, Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar ibn Manṣūr ibn Matt, the Anṣārī al-Harawī; author of the book “Dhamm al-Kalām,” and the leading shaykh of Khurāsān, a descendant of the Prophet’s Companion Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī.
His birth: in the year six (2) and ninety and three hundred—that is, 396 AH.
He received transmission from ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Muḥammad al-Jarrāḥī—he heard the entire Jāmiʿ of Abū ʿĪsā—or
(1) The chain of transmission is sound. ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Harith is the Ansari from Basra, Abu al-Walid, a kinsman by marriage of Ibn Sirin; all six canonical collections relate his hadiths. Abu Halima is Muʿadh ibn al-Harith al-Ansari al-Muzani, known as “the Reciter.” He was a Companion who was present at the Battle of the Trench; some maintain that he experienced only six years of the Prophet’s lifetime. ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab appointed him, among others, to lead the people in the tarawih prayer during Ramadan. He also fought at the Battle of the Bridge with Abu ʿUbayd al-Thaqafi; when the army retreated, he retreated as well, and ʿUmar declared, “I am their rallying point.” The report concerning the excellence of sending blessings upon the Prophet is no. 107 in the collection of Ismaʿil al-Qadi and is reproduced in Ibn Nasr’s Qiyam al-Layl, p. 36. The phrase “in al-qut” here means “during the qunut of the witr prayer.”
(*) Principal biographical sources: Dummyat al-Qasr 2/888; Tabaqat al-Hanabila 2/247-248; al-Muntazam 9/44-45; al-Kamil 10/168-169; Duwal al-Islam 2/10; al-ʿIbar 3/297-298; Tadhkirat al-Huffaz 3/1183-1191; al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya 12/135; al-Nujum al-Zahira 5/127; Tabaqat al-Huffaz 441-442; Tabaqat al-Mufassirin (al-Suyuti) 25; Tabaqat al-Mufassirin (al-Dawudi) 1/249-250; Tabaqat al-Mufassirin (al-Adnawi) fol. 35b; Tarikh al-Khamis 2/360; Kashf al-Zunun 1/56, 420, 828; 2/1828, 1836; Shadharāt al-Dhahab 3/365-366; Idah al-Maknun 1/310, 2/118; Hadiyyat al-ʿArifin 1/452-453; al-Risala al-Mustatrafa 45. See also Subki’s Tabaqat 4/272-273, where he is mentioned in the biography of Abu ʿUthman al-Sabuni.
(2) Al-Muntazam dates the event to the year 95 A.H.