A singular, Companion-level report (1).
Shaykh al-Islam ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī ʿUmar (2) informed us: ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad informed us; Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī informed us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-ʿAbbāsī informed us; ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm al-Kattānī informed us; Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥaddāʾ narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Aṣram and Abū Bakr al-Marwazī both said:
Muḥammad ibn Nūḥ—Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s travelling companion—narrated to us; Isḥāq al-Azraq narrated to us, from ʿUbayd Allāh, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Every nation shall have some of its people in Paradise and some in the Fire, except this nation, for all of it will be in Paradise (3).”
In the year 275 AH (75) (75) there also died, together with al-Marwazī: Aḥmad ibn Mulāʿib (4); al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Maʿshar; Abū Dāwūd, the author of the Sunan (5); Abū ʿAwf al-Buzūrī (6); Yaḥyā ibn Abī Ṭālib (7); and Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ghālib (8) — Ghulām
(1) Al-Suyuti cites it in al-Durr al-Manthur, vol. 4, p. 20, and attributes it to Ibn Abi Shayba; to Abd Allah b. Ahmad in Zawaid al-Zuhd; to Ibn al-Mundhir; to Ibn Abi Hatim; and to Abu Shaykh.
(2) His entry is found in al-Dhahabi’s Mashikha (MS Kh, fol. 75) under the name Abd al-Rahman b. Umar b. Ahmad b. Hibbat Allah. He died in 677 AH.
(3) The chain’s transmitters are trustworthy. Al-Tabarani records the tradition in al-Saghir, 1/232, and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi in Tarikh Baghdad, 3/322, both through two routes from Abu Bakr Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Hajjaj with this same isnad. Al-Khatib reports that al-Burqani said: “I have learned that Muhammad b. Nuh was Ahmad b. Hanbal’s neighbour, and Ahmad said to someone who asked about him, ‘Write from him, for he is reliable.’” Al-Burqani also quotes al-Daraqutni: “This hadith is unique to Ishaq al-Azraq; no one narrated it from him except Muhammad b. Nuh al-Madrub, and the only person to transmit it from the latter was Abu Bakr al-Marwazi.”
(4) His biography appeared above, p. 42, no. 26.
(5) His biography will be given below, p. 203, no. 117.
(6) His entry is recorded in al-Muntazam, 5/98.
(7) See his biography in Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 2/633 (at the end of the entry on al-Marwazi); also al-Ibar, 2/55, and Shadharat al-Dhahab, 2/168.
(8) His biography will appear below, p. 282, no. 136.