from Abū al-Tufayl, we would have taken that as a reason to criticise the report; and had it been in the possession of Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb on the authority of Abū al-Zubayr, we would likewise have faulted it. But when we could locate no defect at all, it ceased to be classified as defective.

We then investigated further and found that Yazīd has no narration whatsoever from Abū al-Tufayl; nor did we find this text, with this wording, in the books of any of Abū al-Tufayl’s own students, nor with anyone who relates it from Muʿādh ibn Jabal apart from Abū al-Tufayl. Hence we declared it anomalous (shādh), and the leading ḥadīth experts only heard it from Qutaybah because they were struck by the unusual nature of its chain and its wording.

None of them, however, has reached us reporting a specific flaw in it.

I say: On the contrary, they recorded it in their compilations, and some of them regarded it as a rare singularity.

Al-Ḥākim said: Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥāfiẓ read this ḥadīth to us and related it to us from al-Nasāʾī—who was the foremost scholar of his era—on the authority of Qutaybah.

Neither Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān nor Abū ʿAlī mentioned any defect in the report; yet when we examined it, we found it to be fabricated.

As for Qutaybah, he himself is reliable and trustworthy.

ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿImrān the jurist told me; Ibn Khuzaymah narrated to us; I heard Ṣāliḥ ibn Ḥafṣawayh—of Naysābūr, a scholar of ḥadīth—say:

“I heard Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī say: ‘I asked Qutaybah, “With whom did you write down from al-Layth the ḥadīth of Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb from Abū al-Tufayl?”’

He replied, ‘With Khālid al-Madāʾinī.’

Al-Bukhārī remarked, ‘This Khālid used to insert spurious reports for the shaykhs.’”

Abū Dāwūd, immediately after, said: “No one transmits this report except Qutaybah alone.”

Al-Tirmidhī said: “It is ḥasan, singular (gharīb); Qutaybah alone transmitted it, whereas the well-known version is the ḥadīth of Mālik and Sufyān”—meaning: from Abū al-Zubayr, from Abū al-Tufayl, from Muʿādh—

“that they set out with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on the Tabūk expedition, and he would combine the noon and afternoon prayers, and the sunset and night prayers”—i.e., without any mention of combining them in advance.

Abū Saʿīd said: “No one narrated it except Qutaybah; it is said that he made a mistake, and that where he cites Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb the correct name should be Abū al-Zubayr.”

I say: That would mean he erred in the chain and produced an extremely objectionable wording. They hold that