ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim informed us; Abu al-Qāsim ibn al-Harastānī, in person, informed us; Abu al-Ḥasan ibn Muslim informed us; Ibn Ṭalāb informed us; Ibn Jumayʿ informed us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Saʿīd al-Dīnawārī narrated to me in Baghdad; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sinān ibn Mālik al-Saʿdī narrated to us; Sulaymān ibn Ḥarb narrated to us; Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīra—on the authority of Thābit, from Anas—said:
“I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while the barber was shaving his head and his Companions were crowding around him; not a single hair fell without landing in the hand of one of them (1).”
This report is also found in the Jaʿdiyyāt (2) among its higher-level isnāds.
He (Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīra) narrated from: al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, Ḥumayd ibn Hilāl, Thābit ibn Aslam, al-Jurayrī, Abū Mūsā al-Hilālī, and his father al-Mughīra.
Our shaykh al-Mizzī added no other names beyond these.
Those who narrated from him include: al-Thawrī, Abū Usāmah, Bahz ibn Asad, Abū Dāwūd, Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAqadī, Ibn Mahdī, ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Tannūrī, Asad ibn Mūsā, and Ḥabbān ibn
Ya‘la was counted among our leading authorities. They advanced the same proof invoked by ‘Aisha and replied to the report of the Badr well in exactly the way she did, maintaining that the episode was a miracle granted exclusively to the Prophet ﷺ: the dead’s ability to hear his words.
In Sahih al-Bukhari, 7/235, Qatadah remarks: “Allah revived them—meaning the people of the well—so that He made them hear his statement as a scolding, belittlement, punishment, regret and remorse.”
Ibn ‘Atiyya adds: “The Badr incident appears to be a breach of the natural order for Muhammad ﷺ, in that Allah restored to the slain a perception by which they could hear his speech. Had the Prophet ﷺ not informed us of their hearing, we would have interpreted his address merely as a rebuke to the surviving unbelievers and a solace for the believers.”
See Fath al-Qadir, 1/447, by Kamal ibn al-Humam; he reports that, according to the Hanafi masters, the dead do not hear.
(1) Its chain of transmission is sound. Muslim also records it (no. 2325) in the Book of Virtues, chapter “The Prophet’s closeness to the people and their seeking blessing from him,” through the isnad: Muhammad ibn Rafi‘ → Abu al-Nadr → Sulayman ibn al-Mughira → Thabit → Anas, who said: “I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while the barber was shaving his head and his companions had encircled him; they would not allow a single hair to fall except into a man’s hand.”
(2) The hadith from “al-Ja‘diyyat” has already been cited on p. 284, no. 1.