Saʿd (4) al-Khayyāṭ related it to us. Aḥmad ibn Salāmah informed me, on the authority of al-Khayyāṭ; Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād informed us; Abū Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ informed us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to us; Wuhaib, from Ibn Ṭāwūs, from his father, from Ibn ʿAbbās, reported:
“The evil eye is real. If anything were capable of outstripping the Divine decree, the evil eye would do so. When you are asked to wash, then comply and wash.” (1)
Muslim also recorded the report through Ḥajjāj ibn al-Shāʿir, from Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm, with the wording: “even if it were (wa-law kāna).”
7 – al-Tarqufī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī ʿĪsā
An Imām, an exemplar, a ḥadith scholar and a reliable authority: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī ʿĪsā al-Bākusāʾī (2), known as al-Tarqufī; one of those who travelled far and wide in search of the Sunan collections.
(1) Its chain of transmission is sound. The report is also found in Abu Nuaym, Hilyat al-Awliya, 4/17. Muslim transmits it (no. 2188) in the Book of Salam, chapter “Medicine, Illness and Protective Recitations,” and al-Tirmidhi records it (no. 2063) in the Book of Medicine, chapter “The Evil Eye is Real.” Concerning the phrase, “If you are asked to wash, then wash,” Ibn al-Athir explains in Jami al-Usul, 7/583: “The customary practice was that when someone was struck by another’s evil eye, he would go to the one who had cast it; that person would remove his clothes and wash his body, armpits, face and limbs. The afflicted individual would then pour that water over himself and, by Allah’s permission, recover.” On the same topic, see the hadith of Abu Hurayra in al-Bukhari, 10/173 (Book of Medicine), Muslim (no. 2187) and Abu Dawud (no. 3879).
An entry on Samawayh appears in: al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, 12/143-144; Ibn Asakir, Tarikh (MS 8/450b-451b); Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam, 5/61; Yaqut, Mujam al-Buldan, s.v. “Taraqf”; Ibn al-Athir, al-Lubab, 1/113, 212; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal (MS 658); al-Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib (MS 2/125) and Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 2/566 (end of the entry on Samawayh); al-Dhahabi, al-Ibar, 2/36; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 5/119-120; al-Khazraji, Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, 189; Ibn al-Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 2/153; Badran, Tahdhib, 7/228.
The nisba al-Taraqafi is vocalised with an initial ta with fath, a silent ra, and a qaf with damma, according to Mujam al-Buldan and Taqrib al-Tahdhib; al-Lubab vocalises the initial ta with damma. It refers to a locality in Iraq.
(2) al-Baksai, with the kaf pronounced with damma, designates someone from Baksaya, a district near Baghdad (see Yaqut’s Mujam and al-Lubab).