From Anas ibn Mālik: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed Ẓuhr in Madinah as four rakʿahs and prayed ʿAṣr at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah as two rakʿahs.”

Aḥmad said (1): “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us, from Sufyān, from Muḥammad—meaning Ibn al-Munkadir—and Ibrāhīm ibn Maysarah, from Anas ibn Mālik, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed Ẓuhr in Madinah four rakʿahs and ʿAṣr at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah two rakʿahs.”

Al-Bukhārī also transmitted it through Abū Nuʿaym, from Sufyān al-Thawrī. Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasāʾī recorded it via Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir (2) and Ibrāhīm ibn Maysarah, from Anas (3).

Aḥmad said (4): “Muḥammad ibn Bakr narrated to us (5); Ibn Jurayj narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir (2), from Anas, who said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed Ẓuhr in Madinah four rakʿahs and ʿAṣr at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah two rakʿahs. He then spent the night at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah until morning; when he mounted his camel and it had lifted him, he pronounced the talbiyah.’”

Aḥmad also said (6): “Yaʿqūb narrated to us; my father narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq; Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir (2) al-Taymī related to me, from Anas ibn Mālik al-Anṣārī, who said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ led us in the Ẓuhr prayer in his mosque in Madinah, four rakʿahs, and then led us in the ʿAṣr prayer at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, two rakʿahs, in complete safety with no fear, during the Farewell Pilgrimage.’”

These last two chains are unique to Aḥmad and satisfy the conditions of authenticity. They categorically rule out his ﷺ having departed on a Friday. Nor can his departure have been on a Thursday, as Ibn Ḥazm asserted, for that would be the twenty-fourth of Dhū al-Qaʿdah. There is no disagreement that the first of Dhū al-Ḥijjah that year fell on a Thursday, since it is mass-transmitted and unanimously agreed that he ﷺ stood at ʿArafah on a Friday, the ninth of Dhū al-Ḥijjah. If he had set out on Thursday the twenty-fourth of Dhū al-Qaʿdah, six nights would certainly have remained in the month: the night of Friday, then Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday—making six nights in all.

Yet Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿĀʾishah, and Jābir all said that he departed when five nights of Dhū al-Qaʿdah remained. Since Anas’s report precludes a Friday departure, it necessarily follows that he ﷺ left Madinah on a Saturday. The narrator assumed the month would be complete, but that particular year it proved to be short: it ended on Wednesday and the crescent of Dhū al-Ḥijjah was sighted on the night