Ibn ʿAdī said: I heard ʿAbdān al-Ahwāzī relate, “I heard Ḥusayn ibn Ḥumayd ibn al-Rabīʿ say, ‘I heard Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah speaking about Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, saying: From where did he get the ḥadīth of Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth from al-Aʿmash—the report that begins, “Whoever rescinds a sale for a Muslim…”?’ (1)
He went on, ‘Here are the notebooks of Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth in our possession, and here are the notebooks of his son ʿUmar; none of them contain this report.’
Ibn ʿAdī commented: This ḥadīth has in fact been transmitted by Mālik ibn Suʿayr from al-Aʿmash, and it was also narrated by Abū ʿAwf al-Buzūrī (2) from Zakariyyā ibn ʿAdī, from Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth.
Ibn ʿAdī continued: Ḥusayn ibn Ḥumayd cannot be relied upon in his narrations; he stands accused in this story. Yaḥyā, on the other hand, is too trustworthy and distinguished for anything of this sort to be ascribed to him; by his verdicts the states of weak narrators are examined.
I add: The upshot is that Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn—despite his eminence—was not the only transmitter of this ḥadīth; praise be to Allah.
Aḥmad ibn Zuhayr said: Yaḥyā was born in the year 158 AH. I (the author) add: and he wrote
Al-Suddi and others maintain that the words al-nazi‘at gharqan (“those who snatch, plunging”) designate the angels at the moment they seize the souls of human beings: some souls are taken with difficulty, so the angels are said to plunge in tearing them out; others are taken gently, as though the bond were effortlessly loosened—this is the sense of the following phrase wa-l-nashitat nashṭan (“those who draw out, smoothly”).
(1) The complete wording, as preserved in Ibn ‘Adi’s al-Kamil, fol. 98, in the biography of al-Husayn b. Humayd, reads: “… may Allah remove his stumble,” and Ibn ‘Adi’s version has nadiman (“remorseful”) in place of musliman (“a Muslim”). The hadith is reported by Abu Dawud, Sunan, no. 3460 (Book of Sales, chapter: The virtue of canceling a sale); al-Hakim, 2:45; Ibn Hibban, no. 1103; and al-Bayhaqi, 6:27 through the chain Yahya b. Ma‘in → Hafs → al-A‘mash → Abu Salih → Abu Hurayra. Additional chains: Ibn Majah, no. 2199 (Ziyad b. Yahya Abu l-Khattab → Malik b. Sa‘ir → al-A‘mash …); and Ibn Hibban, no. 1104, together with al-Bayhaqi, 6:27 (Ishaq b. Muhammad al-Furawi → Malik b. Anas → Sumi → Abu Salih …). The hadith is authentic.
(2) This refers to ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Marzuq b. ‘Atiyya, who died in 275/888.