Abū Nuʿaym then said:
“I was informed by Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Rabbih ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUfayr ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Safar ibn ʿUfayr ibn Zurʿah ibn Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan. My father, Abū Yazan Ibrāhīm, narrated to me; my uncle Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Abū Rajāʾ conveyed the same to us; my uncle Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz related it to me; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUfayr told me, from his father, from Zurʿah ibn Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan al-Ḥimyarī, who said:
‘When my grandfather Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan triumphed over the Abyssinians …’—and he recounted the matter at length.
Abū Bakr al-Kharāʾiṭī said:
“Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Qulūsī narrated to us; al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Faḍl ibn Abī Sawiyyah narrated to us; my father informed me, from his father ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Sawiyyah, from his grandfather Abū Sawiyyah, from his father Khalīfah, who said:
‘I asked Muḥammad ibn ʿAdī ibn Rabīʿah ibn Sawāʾah ibn Jusham ibn Saʿd, “Why did your father name you Muḥammad?”
He replied, “I put the very same question to my father, and he answered:
‘I set out as one of four men from Banū Tamīm—myself; Sufyān ibn Mujāshiʿ ibn Dārim; Usāmah ibn Mālik ibn Jundub ibn al-ʿAnbar; and Yazīd ibn Rabīʿah ibn Kabiyah ibn …’”
(1) This statement does not appear in the printed Dalail edition; it is found in Dalail al-Bayhaqi (vol. 2, p. 1409).
(2) As in the manuscript and printed edition, and in Dalail al-Bayhaqi, Mizan al-I'tidal (vol. 1, p. 44) and al-Isabah (vol. 2, p. 428); in the entry for Abd al-Aziz ibn Saif it reads “Ibrahim ibn Abdullah.”
(3) In Dalail al-Bayhaqi it reads ‘an.
(4) In Dalail al-Bayhaqi: Ahmad ibn Hubaysh; in al-Isabah: Ahmad ibn Husayn.
(5) As in the printed edition; in the manuscript it reads Rakhī. Al-Dhahabi in Mizan al-I'tidal remarks “these individuals are unknown,” and Ibn Hajar in al-Isabah states “the narrators of this isnad are unidentified.”
(6) This is a defective isnad; all are unknown, as Imam al-Dhahabi explains in Mizan al-I'tidal (vol. 1, p. 44) (Bashar).
(7) In his Kitab Hawatif al-Jinan (p. 193); the report is transmitted by Abu Nu'aym in Dalail al-Nubuwwa (vol. 1, pp. 112–113), by al-Bayhaqi in Dalail al-Bayhaqi (vol. 2, p. 114), by Ibn Asakir in Mukhtasar Tarikh Ibn Manzur (vol. 16, p. 305; my edition), by Ibn al-Jawzi in al-Wafa (vol. 1, pp. 46–47), by Ibn Hajar in al-Isabah (vol. 3, pp. 379–380, 513), and by al-Suyuti in al-Khasais (vol. 1, p. 23). See also Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd (vol. 1, p. 169) and al-Rawd (vol. 1, p. 182), where the isnad is given as unknown.
(8) In the manuscript and printed edition it reads Muhammad ibn Uthman; this is a scribal error, and the correct reading is established in Mukhtasar Tarikh Ibn Manzur, al-Wafa, Dalail al-Bayhaqi and al-Isabah.
(9) In the manuscript and printed edition it reads Khutham; this is a scribal error, and the correct reading is confirmed by Dalail Abu Nu'aym, Dalail al-Bayhaqi, Mukhtasar Tarikh Ibn Manzur, al-Isabah, Jamharat al-Ansab of Ibn al-Kalbi (vol. 1, p. 334, ed. al-Azim) and Jamharat al-Ansab of Ibn Hazm (p. 215).
(10) Not “Ibn al-Anbar”; in the manuscript and printed edition it reads Ibn al-Aqid. The correct reading is given in al-Hawatif, Mukhtasar Tarikh Ibn Manzur, al-Isabah, Jamharat al-Ansab of Ibn al-Kalbi (vol. 1, p. 363, ed. al-Azim) and Jamharat al-Ansab of Ibn Hazm (p. 208).
(11) In the manuscript, printed edition and al-Hawatif it reads Kinana; the correct reading appears in al-Ishtiqaq of Ibn Durayd (p. 204), Jamharat al-Ansab of Ibn al-Kalbi (vol. 1, pp. 371–373, ed. al-Azim) and Jamharat al-Ansab of Ibn Hazm (p. 211).