Jubayr would relate from Muʿāwiyah, from the Prophet ﷺ, concerning the matter of the rulers. Ṣāliḥ Jazarah, and likewise al-Zuhrī, commented, “When a narrator merely says, ‘So-and-so used to report,’ that is not evidence of direct hearing.”

He then added, “Nuʿaym has also transmitted it—through Ibn al-Mubārak, from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī.” He continued, “This ḥadīth has no foundation; it is not known among the narrations of Ibn al-Mubārak. I have no idea where Nuʿaym obtained it. He would narrate from memory, and he possesses many manākir (denounced reports) that find no corroboration. I heard Ibn Maʿīn asked about him, and he said, ‘In ḥadīth he is worth nothing, but he is a man of the sunnah.’ (1)

I say: The report about the rulers is gharīb (singular) and munkar (denounced), and today authority is not in the hands of Quraysh, while the Prophet ﷺ speaks only the truth. If the intent of the ḥadīth is an instruction rather than a factual report, then perhaps; the ḥadīth does have a basis through al-Zuhrī (2), and it may be that Nuʿaym retained it from Ibn al-Mubārak.

Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād also narrated—from Ibn al-Mubārak, from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī, from Anas—that when the month of Ramadan arrived, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would say, “There has come to you a purifying month (3),” and so on.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir said, in his biographical entry on Nuʿaym—produced with his customary thoroughness—“This was transmitted by al-Zuhrī’s students, from al-Zuhrī, from Ibn Abī Anas, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah.”