fasting.”
I asked, “Is this the way Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him—used to fast it?”
He answered, “Yes.”
Muslim also reports from Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “If I live until next year, I shall certainly fast the ninth,” meaning the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ.
The sense of Ibn ʿAbbās’s statement, “Fast the ninth,” is: together with the tenth. This is authentically established from him, and he justified it by saying that it was meant to differ from the Jews. Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr said: Sufyān related to us—through ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, who heard ʿAṭāʾ— that he heard Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) say:
“Fast the ninth and the tenth; differ from the Jews.”
We have likewise transmitted in the collected narrations of Dāwūd ibn ʿAmr, through Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, that it was mentioned in the presence of Ibn Abī Najīḥ that Ibn ʿAbbās used to say, “The day of ʿĀshūrāʾ is the ninth day,” whereupon Ibn
(1) The printed edition has: “kana yasumu Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him” (“the Prophet used to fast it”), moving the verb forward; this wording differs from that found in Sahih Muslim and in all the other manuscript copies.
(2) Sahih Muslim, Book of Fasting, chapter “Which day is to be fasted for Ashura,” hadith no. 1133, 2/797.
(3) The printed edition adds the word maʿa (“with”), which is absent from Muslim and from the other manuscripts.
(4) Sahih Muslim, same book and chapter, continuation of hadith no. 1134, 2/798.
(5) The printed edition inserts: “It has already been cited.”
(6) The printed edition adds: “Oppose the Jews.”
(7) The printed text reads “Yahya ibn Mansur,” a reading contradicted by all the manuscript copies.
(8) Al-Bayhaqi also transmitted the report with a different chain and mentioned a third isnad from Ibn Abbas; see al-Sunan al-kubra, 4/287. ʿAbd al-Razzaq likewise records it in al-Musannaf, 4/287, through Ibn Jurayj → ʿAtaʾ → Ibn Abbas. The chain is sound.
(9) Dawud ibn ʿAmr ibn Zuhayr al-Dabbi, Abu Sulayman al-Baghdadi, was a reliable hadith scholar who died in 228 AH; see Tadhkirat al-huffaz 1/457, no. 465, and Tahdhib al-tahdhib 3/295, no. 369.