Thawbān and the hadith of Ibn ‘Abbās. Imam Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, stated that they derive from a single hadith, although he did not mention the hadith of Thawbān: either it had not reached him, or it had reached him and constituted an independent report. They all make clear that this occurred in a dream and in Madinah, except for the hadith of ‘Ikrimah from Ibn ‘Abbās. Ahmad, however, regarded the two as having a common source.

The scholars likewise said this. After citing the hadith of Ibn ‘Abbās with its various chains and wordings—beginning with the report of Hammād ibn Salamah from Qatādah, from ‘Ikrimah—and citing the report of al-Hakam ibn Abān from ‘Ikrimah and the hadith of Umm al-Tufayl, al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā said:

“Know that this was a vision in a dream, for Umm al-Tufayl explicitly stated this in her report, whereas most versions of the hadith of Ibn ‘Abbās leave this unspecified.”

He said: “An explicit mention of a dream has been transmitted in some versions, as in the report narrated to us by Abū al-Qāsim ‘Abd al-‘Azīz, who said: ‘Abū Bakr Ahmad ibn Ja‘far ibn Mālik informed me by authorization to transmit