Ahmad ibn Ishaq informed us; Ibn ʿAbd al-Salam informed us; al-Urmawi, al-Taraʾifi, and Ibn al-Dayyah informed us; they said:
Abu Jaʿfar ibn al-Muslimah informed us; Abu al-Faḍl al-Zuhri informed us; Jaʿfar al-Firyabi narrated to us; Muhammad ibn ʿĀʾidh narrated to us; al-Haytham ibn Ḥumayd narrated to us; al-Waḍīn ibn ʿAṭāʾ narrated, from Yazīd ibn Marthad, who said:
The Antichrist (al-Dajjāl) was mentioned in a gathering in which Abu al-Dardāʾ was present. Nauf al-Bikālī remarked, “Something other than the Antichrist is more frightening to me than the Antichrist.”
Abu al-Dardāʾ asked, “And what is that?”
He replied, “I fear that my faith might be stripped from me while I am unaware.”
Abu al-Dardāʾ exclaimed, “May your mother be bereaved of you, son of the Kindiyyah! Are there even one hundred people on earth who dread what you dread…?” and he went on to relate the rest of the report (1).
99 – Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah ibn Wāqid al-Ḥaḍramī, their client* (ʿ)
The eminent Imām and trustworthy authority, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥaḍramī—their client—al-Batalhiyy (2), the Damascene, judge of Damascus.
(1) All the transmitters are trustworthy except al-Wadin ibn Ata, whose memory was defective. Nuf al-Bikali, the stepson of Kaab al-Ahbar, is described by Ibn Hajar in al-Taqrib as “a little-known Damascene; Ibn Abbas rejected only what he narrated from the People of the Book.” He is cited in both Sahih collections in the chain of the hadith reported by Said ibn Jubayr, from Ibn Abbas, from Ubayy ibn Kab, about the story of Musa and al-Khidr. Ibn Hibban lists him among the reliable narrators, adding that he was mainly a transmitter of narrative reports.
* Principal sources: al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir 8/268; idem, al-Tarikh al-Saghir 2/224; al-Fasawi, al-Marifa wa-l-Tarikh 1/174; al-Uqayli, al-Duafa 3/460; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Tadil 9/136; Ibn Mandah, al-Jam 558; Ibn Asakir, Tarikh Dimashq 18/29 b; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal no. 1493; al-Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib 4/152/1; idem, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz 1/264; idem, al-Ibar 1/222, 288; idem, Mizan al-Itidal 4/369; Ibn al-Jawzi, Mirat al-Jinan 1/396; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib 11/200; idem, Khulasa Tadhhib al-Kamal 422; Ibn al-Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab 1/305.
(2) Vocalised with an open ba and ta and a silent lam: the nisba refers to Bayt Lihya, a locality of Damascus in the Ghuta. The poet Ahmad ibn Munir al-Atrabullusi mentions it:
“May life-giving rain fall on it—from al-Nayrabein
To the twin Ghutas and Hammuriyya,
To Bayt Lihya, to Barza—
While she appears, shaking her water-skins.”