Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Balkhī, the preacher, later took up residence in Samarkand and the surrounding regions.
He kept the company of Aḥmad ibn Khaḍrawayh al-Balkhī, and he was the last person alive to narrate directly from Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd.
Al-Sulamī said (1): ʽAlī ibn al-Qāsim al-Khaṭṭābī, the preacher of Marw, narrated to us; he said: Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Balkhī, the Sufi of Samarkand, narrated to us; he said: Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd narrated to us …
He then cited a ḥadith (2).
Al-Sulamī also said: I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥīrī say, “I heard Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī say: ‘If I had the strength, I would travel to my brother Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl so that I might find comfort merely by seeing him.’”
Among those who transmitted from this shaykh of Balkh was Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī. Abū Bakr ibn al-Muqriʾ also related from him—by ijāzah—in his Muʿjam.
His teachers included Abū Bishr Muḥammad ibn Mahdī, the close companion of the preacher Ibn al-Sammāk.
Others who narrated from him are Ismāʿīl ibn Nujayd and Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad.
(1) In Tabaqat al-Sufiyah, p. 213.
(2) Full wording of the report: "Lays ibn Saad narrated to us, from Sa id ibn Abi Sa id al-Maqburi, from his father, from Abu Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘No prophet was ever sent without being granted signs upon which people believed. The sign granted to me is only revelation that Allah has sent down to me; therefore I hope to have the largest following on the Day of Resurrection.’"
Its chain of transmission is authentic. Al-Bukhari recorded it in his Sahih, 9/64, at the beginning of the chapter "Merits of the Quran," through the narration of Abd Allah ibn Yusuf; Muslim recorded it (no. 152) in the Book of Faith, chapter "The Obligation to Believe in the Mission of our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ," through Qutaybah ibn Sa id—both of them transmitting from Lays. Ahmad also related it (2/341, 451) through Yunus and Hajjaj from Lays.
The Prophet’s statement, "The sign granted to me is only revelation," means that the miracle with which he challenges mankind is the revelation sent to him, namely the Quran, because of the manifest inimitability it contains. The statement is not meant to restrict all his miracles to the Quran, nor to deny that he was given miracles similar to those of previous prophets; rather, it emphasizes that the Quran is his greatest, perpetual, and exclusive miracle.