[Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said about] Shahr: he had memorised them as though he were reciting a surah, and they amounted to seventy hadiths. (1)
Sayyār ibn Ḥātim said: Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān narrated to us, from Abū Bakr al-Hudhalī, from Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, who said:
When the son of Adam killed his brother, Adam went one hundred years without laughing, after which he began to say:
“The lands and those upon them have all been changed;
The very face of the earth is dusty and vile.
Everything of colour and flavour is altered;
Rare now is the cheerful, handsome smile.” (2)
Isḥāq ibn al-Mundhir—a trustworthy shaykh—said: ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Bahrām narrated to us, from Shahr, from Ibn ʿAbbās:
The Prophet ﷺ said, “Every prophet has a sanctuary, and my sanctuary is Medina.” (3)
Thābit al-Bunānī narrated, from Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, from Umm Salama: the Prophet ﷺ recited, “Indeed, his deed was unrighteous.” (4) [Hūd 11:46]
Al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah narrated, from Shahr, from Umm Salama: the Prophet ﷺ forbade every intoxicant and stupefying substance. (5)
(1) Ibn Asakir, vol. 8, p. 71. The continuation reads: “They are lengthy and contain letters that must be carefully vocalised, yet people recite them in separate pieces.”
(2) Abu Nuaym, Hilyat al-awliya, vol. 6, p. 63; al-Dhahabi, al-Mizan, vol. 2, p. 284. Al-Tabari also transmits the report and the two verses through a different chain in his History, vol. 1, p. 145, and his Tafsir, vol. 6, p. 190. In that version “bashada” (cheerfulness) is in the nominative and “al-wajh al-maliḥ” (the handsome face) in the genitive, which produces a metrical flaw. The poem itself is an artificial fabrication.
(3) Reported by Abu Nuaym in Dhikr akhbar Isbahan, vol. 1, p. 343, through the chain: Abd Allah b. Jaʿfar – Ismaʿil b. Abd Allah – Ismaʿil b. Aban – Abd al-Hamid b. Bahram – Shahr – Ibn Abbas. Ahmad records it in the Musnad, vol. 1, p. 318, through Abd al-Hamid b. Bahram – Shahr – Ibn Abbas, adding at the end: “O Allah, I declare it inviolable by Your inviolability: no innovator may seek refuge there, its brush is not to be cut, its thorns are not to be clipped, and anything found there is to be picked up only by one who will announce it.” Ibn Asakir cites it in his History, vol. 8, p. 70a. Al-Haythami includes it in Majmaʿ al-zawaʾid, vol. 3, p. 301, attributes it to Ahmad, and deems its chain sound.
(4) Also transmitted by Ahmad, vol. 6, pp. 294 and 322, through Thabit from Shahr. This follows the reading of al-Kisaʾi; see Ibn al-Anbari, Kashf ʿan wujuh al-qiraʾat al-sabʿ, vol. 1, p. 530, and al-Qurtubi, Tafsir, vol. 9, p. 46.
(5) Recorded by Ahmad, vol. 6, p. 309, and by Abu Dawud, no. 3686, through al-Hakam from Shahr.