Al-Ḥākim(1), al-Bayhaqī(2), and Ibn ʿAsākir(3) also transmitted the report through Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Aṣamm, from ʿAbbās ibn Muḥammad al-Dūrī.
A number of other ḥadith masters likewise narrated it on the authority of Abū Nūḥ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghazwān al-Khuzaʿī—their client—who is also called al-Ḍabbī(4) and is better known as Qurrād. He settled in Baghdad and is counted among the trustworthy narrators cited by al-Bukhārī. Many leading scholars and ḥuffāẓ declared him reliable, and I have not found anyone who disparaged him. Nevertheless, this particular tradition of his is unusual. Al-Tirmidhī remarked:
“It is ḥasan gharīb; we know it only through this chain.”
ʿAbbās al-Dūrī said:
“No one on earth relates it except Qurrād Abū Nūḥ. Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal—may Allah have mercy on him—and Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn both heard it from him because of its rarity and singular chain.” This was recorded by al-Bayhaqī(5) and Ibn ʿAsākir.
I say: Part of its peculiarity is that it is a Companion’s mursal report, for Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī only arrived during the year of Khaybar, seven years after the Hijrah. Ibn Isḥāq’s claim that he emigrated from Mecca to Abyssinia is not dependable. In any case, the report is mursal, since this incident is said to have occurred when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was about twelve years old. It is possible that Abū Mūsā heard it directly from the Prophet ﷺ—which would make it stronger—or from one of the senior Companions, may Allah be pleased with them; or perhaps the story was so well known that he received it through common circulation.
Second: The mention of the cloud is not cited in any account more authentic than this one.
Third: The wording, “Abū Bakr sent Bilāl with him,” is problematic. If the Prophet was indeed twelve at the time, Abū Bakr—may Allah be pleased with him—would have been nine or ten years old, and Bilāl even younger. Where, then, would Abū Bakr have been, and where Bilāl? Both details seem unlikely—
unless one were to say that the journey occurred when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was older, either because it took place on a later trip, or because the assertion(6) that he was twelve is not sound, being mentioned only in the report of al-Wāqidī.(7)
Al-Suhaylī quotes some authorities who maintained that Abū Bakr’s age at the time was nine years. Allah knows best.(8)