= Through the isnad of Ibn Numayr: “Yunus ibn Bukayr related to us, Muhammad ibn Ishaq related to us, saying: Aban ibn Salih related to us, from al-Hasan ibn Muslim ibn Yanaq, from Safiyya bint Shayba ….” This chain is strong. As al-Hafiz states in the Introduction to Fatḥ al-Bari, the majority—among them Yahya ibn Maʿin, Abu Hatim, and other critics—declared Aban ibn Salih reliable; only Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr dissented, judging him weak. Abu Dawud (no. 1878) and Ibn Majah (no. 2947) also transmit—through Ibn Ishaq, who said: “Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Zubayr told me, from ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Abi Thawr, from Safiyya bint Shayba”—that she said: “When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ felt at ease in Mecca in the Year of the Conquest, he performed tawaf on a camel, touching the Corner with a stick he held in his hand, while I was watching him.” This chain is sound and weakens the argument of those who deny that she actually saw him. (*) Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat, 7/68; Khalifa, al-Tabaqat, 258 and 1375; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh, 2/151; al-Kunna, 1/29 (under Abu Rafaʿa ibn Asad); al-Jarḥ wa-l-Taʿdil, 2/440; al-Istiʿab, 194; al-Jamʿ bayna Rijal al-Sahihayn, 1/64; Usd al-Ghaba, 1/214 and 5/193; Tahdhib al-Kamal, 1604; Tarikh al-Islam, 2/253; Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, 4/212 b; al-Isaba, Kunya no. 410; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 12/96; Khulasa Tadhhib al-Kamal, 379. (1) The author vocalised the name with ḍamma followed by fatḥa, and Ibn Hajar adopted the same reading in al-Isaba. (2) This appears in his biography in the Tabaqat. (3) Ibn al-Athir explains in al-Nihaya that a tabiʿi from among the jinn is called raʾi (pattern: kumi). He was so named either because he “shows himself” (taraʾi) to the one he follows, or because he is a “man of opinion” (raʾy), as in the expression: “So-and-so is the raʾi of his people,” i.e., their counsellor.