al-Ḥawḍī, ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd, and Qabīṣah—men gifted with a strong memory; they would transmit the tradition in its entirety. He also said of Qabīṣah that his delivery was as though he were reading from a written page.
I say: I am deeply impressed by Abū Zurʿah’s remarks in the science of criticism and accreditation; they display evident piety and well-grounded knowledge. His colleague Abū Ḥātim, by contrast, is an exacting critic.
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī (1), Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan the jurist (2), Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān the eye-witness (3), and Sitt al-Quḍāt, daughter of Yaḥyā (4), read to us, saying:
Karīmah daughter of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Qurashiyyah (5) related to us; Abū al-Khayr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Bāghbān (6) conveyed to us in his written work; Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Abī ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mandah informed us; my father informed us; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Naysābūrī informed us; he narrated to us—
= Allah. He said: “Do nothing except with the Opening of the Book (surat al-Fatiha), for there is no prayer for the one who does not recite it.”
The chain’s transmitters are trustworthy, and Ibn Ishaq explicitly stated that he heard the report, which removes the suspicion of his tadlis (concealed transmission). However, Mak-hul was himself a mudallis and only linked the report with the ambiguous formula “from,” and his chains are in general inconsistent; therefore the isnad is weak.
For a detailed discussion, see al-Jawhar al-Nafiʿ, 1/164, and Nasb al-Rayah, 2/12.
(1) His biography is in al-Dhahabi, Mashyakha, MS, fols. 42–43.
(2) Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Yusuf ibn Musa, the jurist, pious and devout, titled Sadr al-Din Abu Abd Allah al-Armawi al-Fayruzi al-Shafiʿi, born in 610/1213 … died in Shaʿban 700/1301 … He was a scholar who acted upon his knowledge (al-Dhahabi, Mashyakha, MS, fol. 131).
(3) Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hibat Allah, the legal assessor (muʿaddil), Zayn al-Din Abu Ishaq ibn al-Shirazi, d. 714/1314 (see al-Dhahabi, Mashyakha, MS, fol. 28).
(4) Sitt al-Qudat, daughter of Yahya ibn Ahmad, d. 712/1312. The author gives her biography in his Mashyakha, MS, fol. 59.
(5) A distinguished woman hadith scholar, she died in Damascus in 641/1243. See Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4/1434–35, at the end of the entry on al-Sarifini; also Shadharat al-Dhahab, 5/212.
(6) al-Baghban, with a quiescent ghayn: the nisba derives from huffaz al-bagh, meaning “the orchard” (see al-Lubab).