Aḥmad relates in his Musnad:
“Ismāʿīl narrated to us; Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind narrated to us; from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather:
A group of men were sitting at the door of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. One of them said, ‘Did not Allah say such-and-such?’ Another replied, ‘But did not Allah say such-and-such?’ The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—overheard them, came out to them, and his face was flushed as though pomegranate seeds had been crushed upon it. He said:
‘Were you commanded to do this? Were you sent for this purpose—that you should pit one part of the Book of Allah against another? It was over matters like this that the nations before you went astray. You have no share in what is here. Look to what you have been commanded to do and act upon it, and as for that which…’
(1) He is Ismail ibn Ulayyah—Ulayyah was his mother—while his father was Ibrahim ibn Miqsam Abu Bishr al-Asadi, a leading, highly reliable and precise hadith memoriser. He was born in 110 AH/728 CE and died in 193 AH/809 CE. See: al-Jarh wa-l-taʿdil 2:153–154; Khulasat al-tadhhib, p. 32.
(2) He is Dawud ibn Abi Hind, whose kunya was Abu Bakr; his father was a freedman of the Al-Aʿlam al-Qushayri family. A trustworthy narrator with a large corpus of reports, he died in 139 AH/757 CE. See: Tabaqat Ibn Saʿd 7:255; al-Jarh wa-l-taʿdil 3:411–12, no. 1881.
(3) His father was Shuʿayb ibn Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As. He is “saduq” (reliable), his direct hearing from his grandfather is established, and he is classed among the eighth generation of transmitters. See: Taqrib al-tahdhib 1:353, no. 84.
(4) That is, Shuʿayb’s grandfather—Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As, the Companion whose biography appeared above (1/129). Some have claimed that the intended grandfather of Amr ibn Shuʿayb is actually Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Amr, which would render the report mursal because Muhammad was not a Companion. This view, however, is weak and has been refuted by the hadith masters. See: Tahdhib al-tahdhib 4:356; 8:48–55.
(5) In other words, the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and his family—turned so red with anger that it was as though a pomegranate seed had been burst on his face; pomegranate seeds are bright red.
(6) The printed edition reads: bi-mithl (“with the like”), contrary to all the manuscripts and to the Musnad.
(7) The printed edition reads: amartukum (“I commanded you”), again against the manuscripts and the Musnad.