—that its hidden defect lay therein and that the wording really goes back to Saʿid himself; yet he found nothing else on the topic and was reluctant to oppose Saʿid b. al-Musayyib without an explicit text.

As for Abu Hanifah, the position transmitted from him by his companions (1) is that if a Successor issued a legal ruling during the era of the Companions (2) and stood alongside them in giving fatwas, his statement counts as authoritative proof *.

Section

You further said that al-Darqutni declared, “It is soundly preserved from al-Zuhri.” Had you quoted his words precisely, the correct view would have been clear to you (3). We shall therefore cite them verbatim:

In his book al-ʿIlal (4) he was asked about the hadith of Ibn al-Musayyib from Abu Hurayrah, from the Prophet ﷺ: “Whoever places a horse between two horses…”—and so on.

He replied: “It is narrated by Saʿid b. Bashir from Qatadah, from Saʿid b. al-Musayyib, from Abu Hurayrah, but he erred in mentioning ‘Qatadah.’ Others report it from Hisham b. ʿAmmar, from al-Walid, from Saʿid b. Bashir, from al-Zuhri, from Saʿid b. al-Musayyib, from Abu Hurayrah. The same version is transmitted by Muhammad b. Khalid and others from al-Walid, and it is likewise related by Sufyan b. Husayn from al-Zuhri—and that is the preserved wording.”

Al-Bargani said: “He was asked, ‘Yet al-Husayn b. al-Samaydʿ al-Antaki narrated it from Musa b. Ayyub, from al-Walid b. Muslim, from Saʿid b. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, from—…”