they run out, you are to inform him.(1)
Chief Judge Taqī al-Dīn Sulaymān ibn Ḥamzah related to us—on more than one occasion—saying: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid the ḥāfiẓ told us; Abū Zurʿah ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muḥammad told us; al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Malik told us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Rāzī told us; Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd Allāh told us; Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Ruyānī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā narrated to us; ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar narrated to us; Fulayḥ, from Abū Ḥāzim, from Sahl ibn Saʿd, narrated:
A slave-girl in the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ became pregnant through fornication. She was asked, “Who made you pregnant?” She replied, “The crippled man did.”
He was questioned and confessed. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “He is too weak to endure flogging.”
He therefore ordered one hundred fresh date-palm stalks to be brought and struck him with them in a single blow.
This is a singular hadith with a sound chain of transmission.(2)
Al-Nasāʾī also recorded it through the route of Abū
(1) This report has already been mentioned in the biographical notice on Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari; see footnote (2) on p. 271 of the present volume.
(2) The chain contains Fuhayl ibn Sulayman, a transmitter noted for many mistakes. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar records in Talkhis, 4/59, that al-Darqutni, after narrating the hadith through Fuhayl → Abu Hazim → Sahl ibn Saʿd, remarked: “Fuhayl erred here; the correct chain is Abu Hazim → Abu Umama ibn Sahl.”
Abu Dawud (4472) relates it through al-Zuhri → Abu Umama → an unnamed man from the Ansar. Al-Nasaʾi transmits it as Abu Umama ibn Sahl ibn Hunayf → his father, while al-Tabarani gives it as Abu Umama ibn Sahl → Abu Saʿid al-Khudri.
Ibn Hajar comments that, if all these lines are reliable, Abu Umama must have heard the report from several Companions and once transmitted it in mursal form. In Bulugh al-Maram he concludes: “The isnad of this hadith is sound (hasan), but scholars differ on whether it is musnad (fully connected) or mursal (abridged).”
Ahmad, 5/222, and Ibn Majah (2574) also record it via Ibn Ishaq → Yaʿqub ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Ashajj → Abu Umama ibn Sahl → Saʿid ibn Saʿd ibn ʿUbadah: “Among our dwellings lived a feeble, maimed man. One day he was discovered having intercourse with one of the household’s slave-women. Saʿd ibn ʿUbadah reported the matter to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The Prophet said: ‘Flog him with one hundred lashes.’ They objected, ‘O Messenger of Allah, he is too weak; a hundred lashes would kill him.’ He replied: ‘Bring a palm frond containing a hundred small stems and strike him once with it.’”