and Muslim’s teacher, Abū Dāwūd al-Mubārakī. It became common to identify him as Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd, but that is incorrect; he is in fact Sulaymān ibn Muḥammad, as Ibn Nuqtah and others have made clear.

Abū al-Maʿālī Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq the Qur’an-reciter informed us; the Imām Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad al-Suhrawardī informed us; Hibatullāh ibn Muḥammad al-Shiblī informed us (ḥ).

And ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī informed us; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad the historian informed us; Muḥammad ibn ʿUbaydullāh informed us. They said:

Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Zaynabī informed us; Abū Ṭāhir al-Mukhal­liṣ informed us; Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī narrated to us; Abū al-Rabīʿ al-Zahrānī narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Zayd narrated to us, from Ayyūb, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, from Bilāl:

that the Prophet ﷺ prayed between the two pillars that were directly in front of him inside the Kaʿbah.

Muslim recorded it (1) through al-Zahrānī.

With this same chain: Abū al-Rabīʿ narrated to us; Ḥammād narrated to us, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from Ibn ʿUmar, from Bilāl, who said: The Messenger of Allah prayed inside the House.

Ibn ʿAbbās said: He did not pray in it; he only pronounced the takbīr in its corners (2).

I say: This is no more than Ibn ʿAbbās’s conjecture, which cannot compete with Bilāl’s eyewitness testimony; the one who affirms an act possesses additional knowledge (3).