from among the scholars are relating it.’
He asked, ‘Who are they?’
It was said, ‘Ibn ʿAjlān, reporting from Abū al-Zinād.’
He replied, ‘Ibn ʿAjlān knew nothing of these matters and was no scholar, and Abū al-Zinād remained in the service of those people until he died; he was merely an aide who followed the officials around.’

I say: Ibn ʿAjlān is not the only one who has transmitted this report, nor is Abū al-Zinād its sole source. It was also narrated by Shuʿayb ibn Abī Ḥamzah from Abū al-Zinād; by Qatādah, from Abū Ayyūb al-Marāghī, from Abū Hurayrah; by Ibn Lahīʿah from al-Aʿraj, and by Abū Yūnus, both from Abū Hurayrah; and by Maʿmar, from Hammām, from Abū Hurayrah. It is likewise authentically reported from Ibn ʿUmar.

Isḥāq ibn Rāhūyah, the scholar of Khurasan, said, ‘This is established as authentic from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’

This sound ḥadīth is recorded in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections (al-Bukhārī and Muslim).

Accordingly, we affirm it, consign its exact meaning to Allah, submit, and do not delve into what does not concern us, while knowing that ‘There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.’

Al-Wāqidī said: Abū al-Zinād died suddenly while bathing, on the night of Friday, the seventeenth of Ramadan, at the age of sixty-six, in the year 130 AH.

Ibn Saʿd said: He died in Ramadan of that same year.

Khalīfah and a number of others said: in the year 130.

And Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Ibn Numayr, and ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Tamīmī,