He also says, with regard to the ʿĪd sermon: “Ibn Mājah reports in his Sunan—on the authority of Saʿīd, the Prophet’s mu’adhdhin—that the Prophet ﷺ would pronounce the takbīr in the intervals of the sermon …”

I comment: Besides the fact that this narration offers no proof for opening the ʿĪd sermon with the takbīr, its chain of transmission is weak; it contains one unreliable narrator and another who is unknown. Hence it is impermissible to use it as evidence that saying the takbīr during the sermon is recommended.

Under the heading “Play, amusement, singing, and eating on the feast days,” al-Ḥāfiẓ states in Fatḥ al-Bārī: “Al-Sarrāj narrated—through Abū al-Zinād, from ʿUrwa, from ʿĀʾisha—that on that day the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘Let the Jews of Madinah know that there is latitude in our religion; I have been sent with an easy, upright way.’”

I remark: In Fatḥ al-Bārī the name appears as “al-Sarrāj,” without the prefix “ibn,” and that is correct. He is the trustworthy ḥāfiẓ, Imām Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nīsābūrī, author of the Musnad and the History, whose biography is given at length in Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ 2/168–272.

Moreover, al-Ḥāfiẓ’s limiting the attribution to al-Sarrāj alone might suggest that no one more renowned than he transmitted the report. This is not the case, for Imām Aḥmad also recorded it (6/166, 233) through the route of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān—meaning Ibn Abī al-Zinād—who said: “ʿUrwa told me …”

I comment: This ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is weak on account of his memory. Al-Ḥāfiẓ states in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful, but his memory deteriorated after he arrived in Baghdad.”

It appears to me that he narrated this ḥadīth after his decline, for he is the sole transmitter of it.