I read this report before Abū al-Maʿālī Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq al-Muʾayyad in Egypt, and al-Fatḥ ibn ʿAbd al-Salām in Baghdad conveys it to you. Ḥibatu Allah ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥāsib narrated it to us, and both Ibn Abī ʿUmar and Abū Zakariyyā ibn al-Ṣayrafī granted us authorization; they said:
Abū al-Futūḥ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī the merchant related it to us in the year 608 AH; Ḥibatu Allah al-Ḥāsib narrated it to us; Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Naqqūr narrated it to us; ʿĪsā ibn ʿAlī dictated it to us; Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Ziyād narrated it to us; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā and Muḥammad ibn Ishkāb narrated it to us; they said:
Wahb ibn Jarīr narrated to us, Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Ḥabīb ibn al-Shahīd, from Ibn Abī Mulaykah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: ʿUmar declared, “ʿAlī is the most proficient among us in judgment, and Ubayy (1) is the best of us in recitation (2).”
Abū Isḥāq said: Ibn Ziyād also composed a work entitled Ziyādāt Kitāb al-Muzanī (3).
Al-Dāraqutnī said: While we were reviewing traditions, a jurist asked, “Who has transmitted the statement: wa juʿilat turbatuhā lanā ṭahūran (its soil has been made a purification for us) (4)?” The group thereupon rose, went to Abū Bakr ibn Ziyād, put the question to him, and he supplied the complete isnād and text.
(1) Ubayy ibn Kab ibn Qays, Abu al-Mundhir al-Ansari al-Madani; his biography appears above, 1/389.
(2) All the transmitters are reliable. In the fully‐linked version the wording is: “The most merciful of my community towards my community is Abu Bakr; the firmest regarding the command of Allah is Umar; the most truthful in modesty is Uthman; the most proficient in the laws of inheritance is Zayd; the best Qurʾan reciter is Ubayy; the most knowledgeable about the lawful and the unlawful is Muadh ibn Jabal; every nation has a trustworthy guardian, and the guardian of this nation is Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah.” Reported by Ahmad 3/184, 281 and al-Tirmidhi (3793) through the chain of Khalid al-Hadda → Abu Qilaba → Anas. Al-Tirmidhi graded it “sound and authentic,” a judgment shared by Ibn Hibban (2268), al-Hakim, and al-Dhahabi. A mursal version from Mamar on the authority of Qatada adds: “and the most competent judge is Ali.”
(3) Tabaqat al-Shirazi, p. 113.
(4) See Tarikh Baghdad 10/121. Al-Khatib notes that this wording is transmitted by Abu Awana → Abu Malik al-Ashjai → Ribii ibn Hirash → Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman → the Prophet. Muslim included it in his Sahih (522, Book of the Mosques, beginning) via Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shayba who said: Muhammad ibn Fudayl related to us, from Abu Malik al-Ashjai, from Ribii, from Hudhayfa, who reported that the Messenger of Allah said: “We have been favoured above other peoples in three ways: our rows have been made like the rows of the angels, the entire earth has been made a mosque for us, and its soil a means of purification when no water is available.”