be pleased with him; Muslim likewise transmitted it together with the ḥadīth of ʿAmr ibn Akhtab in the “Book of Tribulations.”

14 – After ḥadīth 1869, whose wording is: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ went out to the slain of Uhud and prayed over them eight years later…,” he wrote: “What is meant by ‘praying over the martyrs of Uhud’ is supplicating for them, not the formal ṣalāh.”

I say: That is what he claimed, and by that negation he intends the funeral prayer, but the claim is unfounded. In one version recorded by al-Bukhārī we read: “He prayed over the people of Uhud with his prayer for the dead.” The same additional wording is found in Muslim and others. I have collected the ḥadīth, incorporating these extra phrases from the Six Books and other sources, in my book Aḥkām al-Janāʾiz (pp. 82–83, Islamic Office edition).

15 – Concerning ḥadīth 1883 he said: “From Ibn Masʿūd — may Allah be pleased with him — who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said… It was related by Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and al-Ḥākim, and al-Ḥākim declared, ‘Authentic ḥadīth’….”

I say: This statement suggests that Abū Dāwūd and al-Tirmidhī narrated the report from Ibn Masʿūd, and that is not the case. Only al-Ḥākim transmitted it on his authority, and its chain is sound. Abū Dāwūd and al-Tirmidhī narrated it instead from Zayd, the freed slave of the Prophet ﷺ, and there is an unknown narrator in that chain; nevertheless it is an acceptable supporting report. The ḥadīth has other corroborations to which I referred in al-Taʿlīq al-Raghīb (2/269).

I reviewed those chains once more and corrected them as best I could on the forenoon of Friday, 21 Jumādā al-Ūlā 1398 AH.

Written by
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī