There is some doubt concerning the soundness of this report. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir transmitted it (1) through Sufyān ibn Muḥammad al-Maṣṣīṣī, from Hushaym, from Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, from al-Ḥasan, from Anas, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, declared, “As an honor my Lord has bestowed upon me, I was born already circumcised, and no one ever saw my nakedness.”

He then cited it (2) by way of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah from Hushaym with the same chain, and again (3) through Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān—al-Bāghandī—who said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ayyūb al-Ḥimṣī narrated to us; Mūsā ibn Abī Mūsā al-Maqdisī narrated to us; Khālid ibn Salamah narrated to me, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was born with his umbilical cord severed and already circumcised.”

Abū Nuʿaym stated (4): Abū Aḥmad Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ghaṭarīfī narrated to us; al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mālikī narrated to us; Sulaymān ibn Salamah al-Khabāʾirī narrated to us; Yūnus ibn ʿAtāʾ narrated to us; al-Ḥakam ibn Abān narrated to us; ʿIkrimah narrated to us, from Ibn ʿAbbās, from his father al-ʿAbbās, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was born circumcised and with his umbilical cord cut. This amazed his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and made the child dear to him. He said, ‘Surely this son of mine will have a great destiny,’ and so it came to pass.”

Some scholars have declared the report sound because of the number of its chains, and a few have even claimed it reaches the level of mass transmission (mutawātir), yet all of this warrants closer examination.

The term mukhtūnan means that the foreskin had already been removed; masrūran means that the umbilical cord had been cut from his mother’s womb.

Ibn ʿAsākir also narrated (5), through ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUyainah al-Baṣrī, who said: ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Madāʾinī al-Sulamī narrated to us; Salamah ibn Muḥārib ibn Muslim ibn Ziyād narrated to us, from his father, from Abū Bakrah, that Gabriel circumcised the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, when he purified his heart. This report is extremely unusual.

It has likewise been related that his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib circumcised him and held a banquet for that occasion, gathering the clans of Quraysh. Allah knows best.

Al-Bayhaqī said (6): Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ informed us; Aḥmad (7) ibn Kāmil the judge—verbally—told me that Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, that is, al-Sulamī (8), narrated to him; Abū Ṣāliḥ [ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ] said (9): Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ narrated to me