and the earth.”
A caller then cried out, “Your camel has wandered off, O son of Ḥuṣayn!” I went out and found her with a shimmer of mirage between us; by Allah, I wish I had left her. This is how the report is given here, though it is also cited in the Book of Expeditions and the Book of Divine Unity. In some versions the wording is, “Then He created the heavens and the earth,” which is likewise the wording transmitted by al-Nasāʾī.
Imām Aḥmad said: Ḥajjāj narrated to us; Ibn Jurayj related to me; Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah informed me, from Ayyūb ibn Khālid, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāfiʿ, the client of Umm Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ took my hand and said, “Allah created the soil on Saturday; He created the mountains within it on Sunday; He created the trees within it on Monday; He created the disliked things within it on Tuesday; He created the light on Wednesday; He scattered the beasts within it on Thursday; and He created Adam after the afternoon on Friday—the last of creation—in the final hour of Friday, between ʿAṣr and nightfall.”
Muslim likewise narrated it from Suraij ibn Yūnus and Hārūn ibn ʿAbd Allāh, and al-Nasāʾī from Hārūn and Yūsuf ibn Saʿīd, all of them transmitting through Ḥajjāj ibn Muḥammad al-Miṣṣīṣī, the one-eyed, from Ibn Jurayj with the very same wording.
Al-Nasāʾī also recorded it in his Tafsīr through Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʿqūb al-Jawzajānī, from Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, from—
(1) Al-Bukhari, hadith no. 4365 on the authority of Abu Nu‘aym, and no. 4386 on the authority of ‘Amr ibn ‘Ali.
(2) Al-Bukhari, hadith no. 7418 on the authority of ‘Abdān.
(3) Recorded by al-Nasa’ī in al-Kubra (no. 11240).
(4) The printed edition adds “Ibn Hanbal,” and the hadith appears in his Musnad (vol. 2, p. 327).
(5) Likewise in versions A and B, in Musnad Aḥmad, and in Muslim, where it reads: “and He spread therein the living creatures.”
(6) Recorded by Muslim in his Ṣaḥīḥ (no. 2789) under “The Hypocrites,” chapter “The Beginning of Creation and the Creation of Adam (peace be upon him).” It is also transmitted by Aḥmad in his Musnad (vol. 2, p. 327) and by al-Bayhaqī in al-Asmā’ wa’l-Ṣifāt (p. 383), who reports that some imams deemed it weak. Ibn Kathīr (may God have mercy on him) noted that this is among the oddities (gharā’ib) of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Although scholars like Ibn al-Madīnī and al-Bukhārī criticized its text, its chain in Muslim is sound and was authenticated by al-Shawkānī in Fath al-Qadīr. Those who see no conflict with the Qur’an explain that God created the heavens and earth together in six days, then the earth alone in two days, whereas this hadith details the creation of all that is on earth in seven days; these two sets of days need not coincide, thus there is no real contradiction. God knows best.
(7) Recorded by al-Nasa’ī in al-Kubra (no. 11010).
(8) al-Musayyisi—vocalized with a kasra under the first mīm and a shadda on the ṣād—is named after al-Musayysa, a city on the seacoast. See al-Lubāb (3/221); Yāqūt reads it with a fatḥa on the mīm. (Mu‘jam al-Buldan)
(9) Recorded by al-Nasa’ī in al-Kubra (no. 11392).
(10) al-Juzjānī—vocalized with a damma on the first jīm, a sukun on the wāw, and a fatḥa on the zāy—takes its name from the city of Juzjān in Khurāsān. See al-Ansāb (3/361) and Mu‘jam al-Buldan (s.v. “Juzjān”).