Al-Majmaʿ 7/36, on the authority of Abu Hurayra. Al-Tabarani also records it in al-Awsat; in the chain appears Qays b. al-Rabiʿ, whom Shuʿba and al-Thawri considered reliable while others judged him weak. The term al-hal means “black clay and sludge,” i.e. the mud of the sea. Ahmad (1/240, 340) transmits it through Muhammad b. Jaʿfar, from Shuʿba, from ʿAdi b. Thabit and ʿAtaʾ b. al-Saʾib, from Saʿid b. Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbas. One of the narrators raises the report to the Prophet ﷺ: “Gabriel used to stuff mud into Pharaoh’s mouth, fearing he might say: lā ilāha illā-llāh.” Al-Tayalisi (no. 2618) relates it with similar wording from Shuʿba as a marfuʿ report. Ibn Kathir cites it in his Tafsir (2/430) through al-Tayalisi’s route and notes that Abu ʿIsa al-Tirmidhi (no. 3108) and Ibn Jarir (no. 17858) also record it through several routes from Shuʿba with the same wording; al-Tirmidhi grades it “hasan gharib sahih.” Al-Hakim includes it in al-Mustadrak (2/340), saying: “This hadith meets the criteria of al-Bukhari and Muslim, though they did not include it; most of Shuʿba’s companions, however, stop it at Ibn ʿAbbas.” Ahmad (1/245, 309), Tirmidhi (no. 3107) and Ibn Jarir (no. 17861) further relate it through Hammad b. Salama, from ʿAli b. Zayd b. Judʿan, from Yusuf b. Mihran, from Ibn ʿAbbas. Although ʿAli b. Zayd is weak, Tirmidhi still calls the hadith “hasan,” presumably in light of the stronger preceding chain. (*) Tarikh Ibn ʿAsakir, MS: 9/70b–71a; Mizān al-Iʿtidāl 2/408; Lisān al-Mīzān 3/272–273; Tahdhib Badrān 7/369–370. The nisba “al-Masīṣī” is pronounced with a kasra on the mīm, a doubled ṣād, then a quiescent yāʾ, and a lightly pronounced second ṣād; it refers to the town of Masīṣa (see pp. 8 and 2 of the present work).