It was recorded by al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and al-Tirmidhī— all five of them through Abū Mūsā al-ʿAnazī— and our chain joins theirs at a higher level.
Abū Aḥmad Ibn al-Nāṣiḥ said: I heard Muḥammad ibn Ḥāmid ibn al-Sarī, and I asked him, “Why do you not describe Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā as al-zamin (the cripple) the way the shaykhs do when they mention him?”
He replied, “I never saw him crippled; I saw him walking. I asked him about it and he said, ‘One bitterly cold night I fell to my hands and knees, performed ablution, prayed two rakʿahs, and begged Allah. Then I stood up and walked.’”
He added, “So I saw him walking and never found him to be crippled.”
This is a sound story, related by al-Salafī from al-Rāzī. Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Fārisī informed us, saying that Ibn al-Nāṣiḥ narrated it to us.
- Hārūn ibn Isḥāq al-Hamdānī * (t, s, q)
The imam, ḥāfiẓ, firmly reliable authority, and long-lived scholar, Abū al-Qāsim al-Hamdānī al-Kūfī.
He was born a little after 160 AH.
He received hadith from al-Muṭṭalib ibn Ziyād, Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān al-Taymī, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, Abū Muʿāwiyah, and their cohort.
Among those who transmitted from him are al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Mājah, Ibn Khuzaymah, and Badr