(1) Its transmitters are reliable, with the exception of Yazid b. Abi Ziyad, who is deemed weak. Ahmad included the report in his Musnad through the chain of Salih b. Umar, 4/285, and al-Haythami cites it in Majmaʿ al-zawaʾid 3/300, noting: “Ahmad and Abu Yaʿla related it and its narrators are trustworthy.” Ibn Hajar comments in Fath al-Bari 4/75, on the hadith of Abu Hurayra—“I have been commanded with a town that consumes other towns; they call it Yathrib, whereas its name is al-Madina”—that some hypocrites used the name Yathrib, whereas the befitting name is al-Madina. On this basis a number of scholars regarded it as disliked to call al-Madina “Yathrib,” arguing that the Qurʾanic occurrence of the term merely quotes the speech of non-believers; they further adduced the hadith of al-Baraʾ in the Musnad of Ahmad. ʿUmar b. Shabba also transmitted, from Abu Ayyub, that the Messenger of Allah forbade calling al-Madina “Yathrib.” Hence ʿIsa b. Dinar of the Maliki school said: “Whoever calls al-Madina Yathrib incurs a sin.” The reason is that Yathrib may derive either from tathrib (blame, reproach) or from tharab (corruption), both of which bear distasteful meanings—while the Prophet favored good names and disliked objectionable ones. (2) The initial sin is vocalized with a damma, as noted in the source. See Ibn Makula, al-Ikmal, 4/467. (*) Jarh wa-taʿdil 2/62–63; Tarikh Baghdad 4/284–85; Tahdhib al-kamal, fol. 33; Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-tahdhib 1/20; Ibn al-Jazari, Ghaya al-nihaya fi tabaqat al-qurraʾ 1/92; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-tahdhib 1/63; Khulasat tadhhib al-kamal, 10.