whom you find foretold in the Torah.
They retorted, “You have lied.”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ answered, “It is you who have lied.”
He said, “So we left—there were three of us—and the verse was revealed: ‘Say: Have you considered, if this (Qur’an) is from Allah and you disbelieve in it, while a witness from the Children of Israel has testified to its like…’ (al-Ahqaf 46:10) (1).
In the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections there is a similar report from Anas ibn Malik, and the witness in question is ʿAbd Allah—that is, Ibn Salam.
85 – Zayd ibn Thabit ibn al-Dahhak ibn Zayd al-Khazraji* (ʿ),
b. Lawdhān ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd ʿAwf ibn Ghanm ibn Mālik ibn al-Najjār ibn Thaʿlabah,
the eminent imam, senior instructor of Qur’an reciters and of inheritance specialists (2), and the mufti of Madinah, Abū
(1) Reported by al-Hakim in al-Mustadrak, 3:415-416; he declared the hadith sound and al-Dhahabi agreed. The version narrated by Anas is found in al-Bukhari, 7:195 and 198, in the chapter on the Hijra. It has already been cited on p. 416, note (1); see there.
(*) Additional sources: Musnad Ahmad, 5:181; Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat, 2:358; Khalifa, al-Tabaqat, 89; Khalifa, Tarikh, 99, 207, 223; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, 3:380-381; Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿarif, 260, 355, 447; al-Fasawi, Tarikh, 1:300, 483; al-Waqidi, Akhbar al-Qudat, 1:197; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 3:558; al-Tabarani, al-Muʿjam al-Kabir, 5:111; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, 3:421, 423; al-Istibsar, 71, 73; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Istiiʿab, 2:537; Ibn ʿAsakir, Tarikh Dimashq, 6:278/1; Ibn al-Athir, Usd al-Ghabah, 2:278; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, 452; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, 2:123; al-Dhahabi, al-ʿIbar, 1:53; Ibn al-Jazari, Maʿrifat al-Qurraʾ, 35; al-Haythami, Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, 9:345; Ibn al-Jazari, Tabaqat al-Qurraʾ, 1:296; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 3:399; Ibn Hajar, al-Isabah, 4:41; al-Khazraji, Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, 127; al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Kanz al-ʿUmmal, 13:393; Ibn al-ʿImad, Shadharāt al-Dhahab, 1:54, 62.
(2) Al-qaradi here means an expert in faraʾid, the science of distributing inheritances. The author gives him this epithet because the Prophet ﷺ said: “The most knowledgeable of my community regarding faraʾid is Zayd ibn Thabit,” a point the author will discuss in Zayd’s biographical entry.