“Q 124/2,” “No. 2602,” through the line of transmission narrated by Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥusayn—ʿĪsā ibn Mīnā reporting from him—with the wording: “I asked him, ‘Is it a sunnah?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’” Thus he affirmed the matter categorically, without the slightest doubt.

Al-Maqdisī then remarked: “Al-Tirmidhī narrated it from Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, from Saʿīd ibn Abī Maryam, from Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar, and he judged it to be a ḥasan (sound) ḥadith,” and al-Maqdisī endorsed that verdict.

This Ibn al-Ḥusayn is Ibn Dīzil, and he is trustworthy and reliable, as the ḥadith master Ibn Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Dimashqī stated.¹

This is plain evidence that ʿĪsā’s version, like that of the other transmitters, asserts the report with full certainty. It appears, rather, that Ismāʿīl the Judge himself did not preserve ʿĪsā’s wording precisely, even though he simultaneously indicated that it was the preferred reading in his view when he said, “...I think so.” Such precision was typical of his meticulousness in transmission—may Allah have mercy on him.

Fourth: a number of entirely reliable transmitters have contradicted him on this point.