perform the pilgrimage the following year.”

It was narrated by Ahmad in his Musnad from Yahya ibn Saʿid, from Hajjaj.

Abu Dawud, al-Nasaʾi, and Ibn Majah also transmitted it through Yahya’s companions with a similar wording.

Al-Tirmidhi narrated it through al-Kawsaj, from Rawh and al-Ansari, from Hajjaj, and he judged it sound (hasan). (1)

Nevertheless, the report is defective because Maʿmar and Muʿawiyah ibn Sallam related it from Yahya, from ʿIkrimah, who said: “from ʿAbd Allah ibn Rafiʿ, from al-Hajjaj.”

Al-Bukhari said, “This is the soundest version.”

Husayn al-Muʿallim said, “We said to Yahya ibn Abi Kathir, ‘These mursal reports—on whose authority do they come?’”

He replied, “Do you think a man would take ink and parchment and then write lies against the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?”

I said, “When something like this occurs, inform us.”

He answered, “Whenever I say, ‘It has reached me,’ it is from a written source.”

Yahya al-Qattan said, “The mursal reports of Yahya ibn Abi Kathir are like the wind.”

Al-Fallas said, “Yahya al-Qattan did not narrate anything mursal—whether from Qatadah or from Yahya ibn Abi Kathir—except for one hadith.

He narrated to us from al-Awzaʿi, from Yahya, that Ibn ʿAbbas did not consider the divorce of a coerced person to count for anything.” (2)

Yazid ibn Harun said, on the authority of Hammam, “I have never seen anyone more thick-skinned than Yahya….”