He said, “I visited Anas ibn Mālik during Ramadan while he was about to set out on a journey. He ate, and I asked, ‘Is this a sunnah?’ As far as I can remember, he answered nothing but, ‘Yes.’

This is the wording transmitted by Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar, although some of his narrators voiced misgivings about that very phrase—the linchpin of the entire proof. Yet al-Dāraqutnī records the report in his Sunan through Abū Bakr al-Naysābūrī, from Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq ibn Sahl, from Ibn Abī Maryam, from Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar, without the slightest hesitation over the wording; he states explicitly: ‘So I asked, “Is it a sunnah?” He said, “Yes.”’

Ibn al-ʿArabī remarked, “The ḥadith of Anas is sound, but only Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal acted upon it.”

I add: What is reported from Saʿīd ibn Abī Maryam diverges. Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq relayed it from him as cited above, whereas Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb al-ʿAllāf contradicted this, placing the incident on the Day of Doubt rather than in the context of intending to travel.

Al-Ṭabarānī likewise narrated it in al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ, saying, “Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb al-ʿAllāf told us: Saʿīd ibn Abī Maryam told us …”