whereas none of the other transmitters who related the report from ʿUrwa—-and they include a group of trustworthy narrators—nor the four reliable reporters who corroborated ʿUrwa in conveying the substance of the story, mentioned the detail transmitted by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād. That silence indicates that his addition is weak.

I then reviewed the matter and said: I have found another chain that goes through Yaʿqūb ibn Zayd al-Taymī, from ʿĀʾisha. Al-Ḥumaydī recorded it in his Musnad 1/123; its transmitters are reliable, so the report is sound provided there is no break between al-Taymī and ʿĀʾisha. Even if a gap exists, it remains a strong supporting narration.

The phrase “the easy, upright way” (al-ḥanīfiyyah al-samhah) is further corroborated, among other routes, by a report from Abū Umāmah. I have documented that ḥadīth and similar ones in al-Ṣaḥīḥah 2924.

I have set out the five isnāds of this ḥadīth, given their exact wordings, and listed the additional material found in each chain in “The Book of Mosques” of al-Thamar al-Mustaṭāb, and again in Ādāb al-Zifāf, pp. 163–169.

Under the heading “The virtue of righteous deeds …” he states: “Imām Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī relate—from Ibn ʿUmar—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘There are no days greater in the sight of Allah … than these ten days, so increase in them your recitation of the tahlīl, the takbīr, and the taḥmīd.’”

I remark: Attributing the narration in al-Ṭabarānī to Ibn ʿUmar is a mistake; al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it only from Ibn ʿAbbās, as indicated in al-Targhīb and al-Majmaʿ. The first says, “Its chain is good,” while the second adds, “Its transmitters are those of the Ṣaḥīḥ.”