Some people relate it with the chain: from Abū al-Yamān, from Shuʿayb, from al-Zuhri, but he said, “This is not one of al-Zuhri’s ḥadith.” (1)

Abū Zurʿah said: Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal told me, “The notebook of Shuʿayb’s narrations from Ibn Abī Ḥusayn had been attached to the notebook of al-Zuhri. I have learned that Abū al-Yamān narrated it to them as: from Shuʿayb, from al-Zuhri, yet it has no foundation. It seems he thought the two notebooks had been mixed together. I sensed that he was excusing Abū al-Yamān and was not censuring him for this.” (2)

Makḥūl al-Bayrūtī reported, from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Abān al-Ḥarrānī: “I asked Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn about the ḥadith of Abū al-Yamān—the one just mentioned—and he replied, ‘I myself questioned Abū al-Yamān, and he said: The ḥadith is al-Zuhri’s ḥadith. Whoever wrote it down from me with that chain has hit the mark; whoever wrote it down from me as being from Ibn Abī Ḥusayn is mistaken. It was only written at the end of Ibn Abī Ḥusayn’s ḥadith, so I slipped and narrated it as his, whereas it is sound when traced to al-Zuhri.’” (3)

Ibn Ṣāʿid transmitted, from Ibrāhīm ibn Hānīʾ al-Naysābūrī, who said: “Abū al-Yamān told us, ‘The ḥadith is al-Zuhri’s ḥadith. In what I narrated to you from Ibn Abī Ḥusayn I made a mistake; I had accidentally turned a page.’” (4)

I say: It is thus established that Abū al-Yamān was mistaken about this ḥadith and persisted in that error, for the major authorities have ruled that the ḥadith is not found among al-Zuhri’s narrations—and Allah knows best.