Al-Ṣāghānī (1) — together with every narrator above him up to ʿIkrimah — is cited by Muslim in his Ṣaḥīḥ, and ʿIkrimah is likewise cited by al-Bukhārī in his Ṣaḥīḥ. Al-Thawrī, Ḥammād b. Salamah, and Sufyān b. ʿUyaynah (2) also transmitted this report — some of them through Ibn Abī Najīḥ and others through Manṣūr (3) — from Mujāhid, from ʿUbayd b. ʿUmayr, regarding the verse in the story of David: {Surely, with Us he enjoys nearness and a good place of return} (4). He explained: “He brings him so close that part of him touches Him.” This wording is recurrently corroborated through these narrators.

Among those who recorded it is Imām Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ʿAmr b. [Abī] (5) ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl in his work al-Sunnah (6), where he says: “Abū Bakr b. Abī Shaybah narrated to us [through] (7) Wakīʿ, from Sufyān, from Manṣūr (8), from Mujāhid, from ʿUbayd b. ʿUmayr: {Indeed, with Us he enjoys nearness} (9). He said: ‘That (10) refers to being drawn so near to Him that a part of him actually touches Him’ (11).”

He also said (12): “Abū Bakr narrated to us; Ibn Faḍīl narrated to us, from Layth, from Mujāhid…”